So why did Vonage decide to raise $250-million of private equity instead of doing a much-anticipated IPO? According to Vonage CFO John Rego, issuing convertible notes was a "good structure" that was not as dilutive as an IPO. "It went rather quickly; the demand was unbelievable, there was more demand than we could fill," he said during a quick chat yesterday. So why does Vonage need so much cash? Rego said it will be spent on working capital, building out its network and e911 deployment. Frankly, it sounds like a lot of money for these projects. As for the IPO, Rego said the company doesn't talk about future funding. "We do what we do. This is a good transaction for us," he said, adding Vonage recently surpassed the 1.2 million subscriber mark. I still find it amazing Vonage has raised $658-million of venture capital. Just out of curiosity, does anything know of a high-tech company that raised as much private equity?

I have a column in today's Financial Post (sadly, it's buried behind our Google News-proof  walled garden) about how it's a disappoinment  that Inukshuk - a proposed fixed wireless, high-speed network - has disappeared into the bowels of a Bell Canada-Rogers joint venture. Inukshuk's demise is really unfortunate because it would have given Canadians an alternative to cable and DSL to get high-speed access. With Inukshuk now part of Rogers (the country's largest cableco) and Bell (the largest telco), the promise of choice has disappeared. There could, however, still be hope for choice in the wake of an interesting deal between Current Communications Group and TXU Corp. that will see high-speed access delivered over electric lines to more than two million people in Texas. Current, a private company controlled by the family of chairman William Berkman, plans to raise $100 million from a group of investors that includes Google, Goldman Sachs and Liberty Associated Partners. TXU, the largest utilty in Texas, and Current are rolling out broadband over power line service (BPL) to many customers in Dallas-Fort Worth, and have plans to offer it to two million customers in North Texas.
For more insight into the need for speed, Om Malik has a lengthy post - including a fancy chart - looking at how U.S. consumers are being starved for really fast broadband service. Om asks the ultimate broadband question: "how much speed is enough?" Meanwhile, eMarketer put out a presss release suggesting the U.K. will be the biggest high-speed market in Western Europe within three years.