Ooma Puts Peer-to-peer Spin on VoIP
After the troubled times of companies like Vonage and SunRocket, it's a little surprising that a new VOIP startup could get $27 million in venture funding from some of the biggest venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. Yet that's exactly what Ooma did, and today the 50-person startup launches beta testing for its flagship VoIP service.
Ooma's guiding principal is that in order for people to finally embrace VoIP, it has to use the existing phones in the house (not PCs, mics and headphones), it has to offer cooler features than plain old phone service, and above all, calls have to be free.
Ooma hopes to make its money by selling a $400 Linux-based gateway device (shown below) that plugs into the customer's broadband connection and existing land line connection (if there is one), and into the existing phone wiring in the house. When users pick up a phone to make a call they hear a special tone indicating that Ooma is on and that they're in VoIP mode.
For calls to non-users VOIP services like Vonage typically must rely on the land line networks of other operators (like AT&T, for example), and that costs money--goodbye free calls. Ooma says it's found away around that problem.
Ooma anticipates that many users will choose to keep one regular land line hooked up, and Ooma's scheme takes full advantage of that fact.
Ooma uses those lines to connect all the Ooma boxes in a given market to form a sort of peer-to-peer grid. Each Ooma box in the grid can be used as a gateway to route calls placed by other Ooma users.
For instance, when an Ooma customer in San Francisco makes a call to Boston, the call travels via the Internet to another Ooma box in the neighborhood of the person he's trying to call. That Ooma box then routes the call to its destination phone using the local operator's land line network. This doesn't affect the owner of that box in the least; he can still place and receive calls normally.
Ooma CEO Andrew Frame says the grid of Ooma boxes in households across the country will increase in capacity naturally: as more boxes are sold, more peers are added to the grid to support the additional call volume.
Because Ooma doesn't have to pay other carriers to terminate calls, they're able to offer the phone service for free, in the U.S. anyway. For international calls they'll charge a per-minute rate, because they'll rely on foreign carriers to complete the calls.
A fairly ingenious idea, if it works. Ooma is also betting consumers won't balk at shelling out $400 for the main hub device and $39 each for the smaller extender devices, called "scouts," that attach to the other phones in the house. Frame says Ooma will sell the hardware directly to the consumer at first, but will soon sell through consumer outlets like Best Buy.
PC World has signed up to help beta test the new service. We will post a more complete review after we've used it for awhile.
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"For calls to non-users VOIP services like Vonage typically must rely on the land line networks of other operators (like AT&T, for example), and that costs money--goodbye free calls. Ooma says it's found away around that problem."
I don't understand. Through my Vonage service, I pay $30/mo and make as many free calls as I want- anywhere I want- including a bunch of overseas locations. The Vonage modem is included, so no equipment cost. I use my standard phones, and I can easily connect to my house wiring if I want. I don't get how Ooma is significantly better. If I have 3 phones, the Ooma-Vonage break even point is more than 17 months. Not worth it for me, anyway.
Yes, I think that is a misquote. I use Vonage and am very very happy with the service. Free free free calls for a fixed price. I've plugged it into my home phone line as well. What's the big deal. Why would I want to fork out $400 for this device. I can as well take my vonage box and have the same phone number anywhere in the world. This may be useful if it supported video calls.
Through my Vonage service, I pay $30/mo and make as many free calls as I want
Um...what about the word "free" don't you understand? $30 a month is not "free calls."
And video phones are a pipe dream. The technology completely exists to make this a reality?but the demand absolutely isn't there.
I have used Vonage for years and it allows me to use my existing phones and has every imaginable feature for free. I don't agree with the statement, "Ooma anticipates that many users will choose to keep one regular land line hooked up, and Ooma's scheme takes full advantage of that fact." because I dropped my land line phone service the second I went to Vonage. From the start Ooma will have to have the same high quality of service that Vonage has or they will not be able to retain their customers. As staisfied as I am with Vonage, I would still like to be a test subject for Ooma if they would offer this for free for some period of time and I wish them good luck on their start up!
No Monthly Fee is what they mean by free. You purchase the phone and you can use it on any phone line, or with your broadband service. I'd guess that if you wanted to port your existing number to Ooma, you can keep your old number.
free means no monthly charge. and my guess is that not everyone would necessarily need a land line hooked up to use the service, just enough people to make the 'peer to peer grid' idea practical. not bad, actually. considering the fate of SunRocket and losses suffered by vonage, ooma with their zero cost calls might survive
After 3 days of research on voip, I found a great company called VIATALK They offer a plan $199 a year for unlimited calling, just like sunrocket and they will give you in addition to the plan they offer you, up to 6 months free service , only if you were a sunrocket customer.
for example , if you sign up for their service for $199 a year and had been a customer of sunrocket and you had 4 months left on your sunrocket plan.. they will give you 4 months free
here is the link.. copy and paste this link in your browser
http://affiliatecenter.viatalk.com/idevaffiliate.php?id=5099
I tried Vonage & it was the worst junk I have ever TRIED to use. (And yes, I have very fast broadband.) Calls sounded like bad cell connections, many would just drop mid-call. Our phone would often ring when there were no calls, and not ring when there were. Sometimes it would just ring non-stop for minutes, forcing a reboot of the interface. Most of the time the voice mail did not work. A good 50% of our calls were routed to our backup number, even when the network was up. And Vonage's customer service was awful, typically routed to India where the "agents" could do nothing but suggest rebooting the interface. Many times, no one answered or a message said to call back later. Continued problems were never fixed, and no call backs were ever made . I was charged for months I had no service at all, and charged a cancellation fee when I quit the service because it would not work. It was not worth it EVEN IF free. At least my AT&T phone ALWAYS works, and Skype fills in for other calls fine
I would strongly recommend all the SunRocket customers to go with a provider like Lingo. Lingo has fine international calling plans for business and home users. Its annual calling plan is available just for $195. Using Lingo?s international telephone number, anyone in Australia, Brazil, France, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Puerto Rico, South Korea, Taiwan and the U.K can make calls to Lingo subscribers at local rates.
http://www.lingo.com/shop/promotions/sunrocket.jsp
Vonage is still the best deal. $30 per month also includes free international calls to nearly all of Europe as well.
I get all of the services that typical landline phone companies charge extra for, including call waiting, call forwarding, 3-way calling, voice mail (including emailing me the sound files), call forwarding, and even automatic forwarding to my cell if my home network fails.
The hardware was free, and when I needed a second line, it was covered by the same hardware and they gave me the first 3 months free.
A couple of month ago, I signed up two friends and earned 4 free months of service (worth $120) and $200 in pre-paid Amex cards.
I pay extra for a toll-free number, so we can call home from a pay phone, if necessary. I think that's $8 per month.
Even if they offered free internationql calls like Vonage, it would still take 13 months to break even on the box, and the Ooma system relies on lots of people continuing to pay for old fashioned phone service.
> Vonage is still the best deal. $30 per month
So in 10 months you've paid more than Ooma cost (now $234 @ Amazon). You'll continue paying $30 a month where as the Ooma customer won't be paying a dime.
I see many flaws with this "peer-to-peer" calling system... what stops a person from listening in to calls routed through their Ooma device? Nothing! Another flaw, for free calling to work everyone has to keep their land line. So this sort of makes it like free long distance, not free calling. Also, what if you get someone making prank calls / threats / harassing phone calls through your Ooma device? Good luck explaining that to the police or FBI.
I see many flaws with this "peer-to-peer" calling system... what stops a person from listening in to calls routed through their Ooma device? Nothing! Another flaw, for free calling to work everyone has to keep their land line. So this sort of makes it like free long distance, not free calling. Also, what if you get someone making prank calls / threats / harassing phone calls through your Ooma device? Good luck explaining that to the police or FBI.