Ooma features free calling, direct lines to top bloggers
Let’s see, the market leader is struggling desperately and the runner-up just went under (see “Vonage sends out leaky boat to pick up SunRocket crash survivors“) — what better time to launch a new Internet telephony product? Nonetheless, with a well-orchestrated buzz fanned by the courtship of some top opinion-shapers, Ooma has splashed into the troubled VoIP waters with a novel approach, now in beta. Instead of a monthly fee, you pay $399 for a box that you hook to your broadband connection. To that, you connect a normal phone (and can extend the service to other phones with a $39 adapter). What you get is free local and long-distance domestic calling in perpetuity (or until the box dies), plus an instant second line and an answering service. Ooma manages this by using a combination of peer-to-peer technology and normal phone lines that Om Malik says will do to the telephone switch what PCs did to the mainframe. Is this a game changer? Well, if the Ooma folks are as adept at technology as they are at PR (they’ve got actor Ashton Kutcher as their creative director, for cripe’s sake), the box has a chance.
Not sure about the timing. Right after people got burned by pre-paying for six months service on Sunrocket.
“Peer-to-peer” sounds like they find an Ooma box in the area code you’re calling and use the landline connected to that box. If that’s so, why do they say that the landline is optional? And what happens if the owner of the box your call is going out through pulls the plug? If it’s something else, they need to explain it better.
Simply: Irrational Exuberance 2.0
Peer to Peer dog food delivery anyone?
This OOMA box has no chance at all, which anyone with some knowledge of how telephone lines and the network works should know. The basic concept is what MCI started with 30 years ago. But they used their own phone lines and their own microwave network and switches. I was the principal designer of the software in that switch that handled the routing and signaling and security, so I know what I am talking about.
One problem with OOMA is that they seem to think they can cover the US with free calling by getting 1500 lines spread around to terminate calls. Sorry, there are many more rate centers in the US than that. It’s not a matter of one per area code. And the data base to support that is huge and constantly changing.
OOMA is doomed.