Verizon fails with The Hub

Verizon has reportedly discontinued the Verizon Hub VoIP phone/widget tablet a little more than six months after it debuted.

The short-lived Hub was intended for households with multiple Verizon Wireless phones, where it could act as a calendar, home messaging and management platform and VoIP base station. And though fixed-line telephony continues to dwindle as technologies such as Femtocell gain cachet among wireless carriers, both The Hub and Verizon's femtocell Wireless Network Extender suffered from the same problem: they weren't tied into FiOS.

The Hub was not meant to be paired exclusively with a Verizon FiOS connection, and that could have proven to be its ultimate undoing. It was marketed as a companion to a 2-year Verizon Wireless contract, and allowed the device to be used on an Internet connection from any provider. Nevertheless, it added a $35 monthly charge onto the customer's wireless bill, in addition to the initial $200 investment and $80 per additional VoIP handset charge.

Unlike Verizon's Hub, AT&T's VoIP "kitchenphone" called HomeManager is packaged with AT&T's U-Verse service and is limited to markets supporting that service, therefore, it has managed to last for just over a year with no outward signs of stopping.