YASP : Ooma comes out of Beta

Yes, it's "Yet Another Service Provider" time again. Ooma is today out of Beta.

Their objective is to create a free calls network in the States utilising the "free local calls" nature of US telco infrastructure.

In other words, if you're in California, and you dial New York, the call will go out over the internet to a PSTN gateway in New York where it is then routed over the PSTN at zero termination charge rate.

Aswath thinks it's illegal. Andy thinks he's heard it all before. It certainly sounds like Phonegnome, which is $60 rather than Ooma's $399 RRP, although I'm not sure that PhoneGnome gives you domestic US calls free of a per-minute charge. Andy probably has a better idea of the Phonegnome network than me though.

So, what else do we know? We know they secured a total of $27m in VC funding. Investors should really do plenty of due dilligence for $27m, but my experience in the tech space is it's pretty easy to pull wool over a VC's dollar-lit eyeballs. They generally don't understand the technology and the same goes for most lawyers. It seems you mention "VoIP" and "...we have a patent" in the same sentence and you can write yourself out a blank cheque. So we can't rely on that as a signal of "all is well".

As for Aswath's comment on legality he's far more au fait with US legislation than I am, and I'm not sure that I would go so far as to call it illegal, but I would say for certainty that it's something Ma Bell and the rest will block, and can block quite easily:-

if ( range == ooma ) {
don't route;
} else {
route;
}

15 minutes of SS7 engineer time on a switch that one, followed by 2 years of litigation designed to confuse the market and suffocate a start-up.

Yes, I think law suits will probably follow. In the meantime, if you spend more than $800/year on domestic US phone calls I don't see any reason for you not to buy one and hope you get more than 6 months use out of it before the incumbent telcos decide they've had enough and swat them.

If you're interested in the actual technology, the $399 box is embedded linux and, as usual with most startups, you get the best background information about their network from looking at the jobs page:-

http://www.ooma.com/careers.php

Overall, it seems to me to be just another company wanting to remove the per-minute charging model sooner rather than later. It's happening anyway, in the incumbent triple-play world, and they should just let it be.

There is no Unique Selling Point here. Once everyone else has dropped the per-minute model, there's no longer any value add, and no longer any need to buy a $399 box.

Reply from aswath on Jul 20, 2007 - 03:58 AM

Let me tell you why I think it is illegal and I suspect that this must be universally true, not just US. Suppose I string my neighbor's telephone wire to my house - this way the neighbor gets telephone service via my line and we split the cost. This means that I realize a party line without the phone company involved. This is prohibited under residential tariff.

Reply from dean on Jul 20, 2007 - 01:51 PM

Thanks Aswath. I realise now that the PSTN gateways they speak of are other Ooma customers. In other words, this is a 100% P2P play sharing other users PSTN connections?

If so, it's just nuts. And it's not innovative at all - Pulver did this a few years ago.

The privacy issues are mind-blowing. I could pick up my phone extension in the house and listen in to other peoples phone calls. And I get all the callerID information in my itemised phone bill.

I also note what you say in your post about Ooma and their claim that "a telephony industry that hasn't innovated in 100 years". Quite incredible that. I wonder where Ooma have been all this time? Perhaps they think it's still 1986?

I still can't understand the $27m cash investment. Unless I have completely misunderstood the model here, this one will go down in history (very quickly) as the dumbest idea ever in the history of telecoms (last 100 years or otherwise).

Reply from mazilo on Jul 20, 2007 - 07:39 PM

I believe what is done over ooma is not the same as what Jeff Pulver has done in his (fwdOUT) service. However, I wonder who will be paying the calls routing in each city in the US.

BTW, does anyone have an ooma token to spare? I sure would like to give it a try.

Reply from mazilo on Apr 10, 2008 - 04:33 PM

dean :

Unless I have completely misunderstood the model here, this one will go down in history (very quickly) as the dumbest idea ever in the history of telecoms (last 100 years or otherwise).

Wonder no more and according to this Silicon Valley's Tech Gossip Rag, I believe Ooma will disintegrate into thin air pretty soon. This definitely is going to generate a lot of Ooma PhDs. (Pretty huge Disappointments).

Reply from satphoneguy on Apr 11, 2008 - 12:43 AM

i just do not see this catching on; particularly in the USA. legality, regulation whatever there are just too many issue for the average American to deal with. for one thing Americans tend to be absolutely fanatical about caller ID. many people do not ever pick up the phone if they do not recognize it. i am pretty sure calls via ooma boxes do not send accurate caller id. anyways that is just one issue. the fact is that long distance in the usa is practically free already.

where would something like ooma perhaps make sense? a similar system marketed in europe with a gsm gateway; a cell phone version that allows you to share your unlimited in network calls with others in exchange for the same on other networks. for example in germany all the major operators offer very cheap plans with unlimited calls within the network. users would buy an extra SIM put in an ooma like box and than be able to call all cell phone networks free via reciprocating members boxes.

calls to cell phones in europe(and other parts of the world - europe was just the example i picked) are still expensive enough that this would make sense.


spg

Voip User Forum Index » The World of VoIP » VoIP News