Discussion on:

VoIP in a box?

If the system uses a PSTN line in someone else's house/office then the call is a standard analog signal and can be listened to and/or recorded with ease.

Most calls will be *randomized* enough that it would be difficult to trace any ongoing conversation that lasts more than one discreet phone call unless the device is in a very unique or small area code (from ooma's distribution perspective).

Your ooma call would always be at risk of being cutoff when a 911 call must go out (maybe not? I assume that 911 would be routed through the net (E911) when the line is up) but on the flip side if the PSTN line you devote to the ooma box is your incoming fax line and some long lost relative decides to spend a day and a half catching up with great aunt Millie then that critical fax you must have from your number one client isn't going to get to you on time.

DSL routers and DSL service (which is typically over-subscribed) have a nasty habit of recycling connections. I assume that part of the technology in the box is a DSL router monitor that triggers a fast reboot of the router should the DSL line go dead. (We did something like that for a number of our sites and we found that most DSL connections drop about once day in Ottawa/Canada at least)

Ingenious idea but as always the devil is in the details and this one has a touch of the old "grazing of the commons" problem. I think as a business model ooma would have been smart enough to set up some major hubs to handle the high traffic area codes and some dial logic that looks at typical length of calls (inbound and outbound) and tries to keep longer calls off the common public grid and through there own circuits (new privacy issues - scanning MY calling habits?).

I'll assume that they have planned to eat the costs of a large number of initial calls to areas net yet served (although a widespread beta test penetration will help alleviate that issue. If ooma wants to penetrate the serious SOHO market space they might need a secondary plan that forces calls to these (slightly more secure) larger hubs but then you get right back to the need to maintain (and hence bill) for ongoing services. I will be interesting to do the math to see what critical mass is required for the service to work, then break even and then prosper and how close ooma is to achieving that.

As always however people's pocket books will decide our collective fate. If ooma provides a service that people like at a price they are willing pay with acceptable terms and conditions and they can maintain (afford) reasonable SLA's then everything else just starts to happen naturally.

Kudo's to them for taking an interesting approach beyond the barstool *this will be kewl* stage....

This trick to use a local landline in the vicinity of the one you are calling is as far as I know does not work in many countries, where a call from one person to his neighbour also has a price. This means that the person having the local landline in the vicinity will carry the costs of the last bit. But if you are that person with nobody else using the OOMA box you may end up with quite a bill. So I wouldn't advise it for countries like Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands !

The challenge with "Owning Your Own Dial Tone" or using Vonage, Sun Rocket, Packet 8 or whatever...YOU ARE USING SOMEONE ELSES NETWORK. Your VOICE packets are traveling on a DATA network. Using a DSL line or cable modem doesn't make a difference. The equipment Originating and Terminating the signal, as well as the switches in brtween, all have to be designed and configured to properly handle Voice Packets.

You will still have dropped calls with this, tinny, echoey connections and all the other challenges that coincide with running VoIP on someone elses network.

Regulatory Risk - Having this type of call route as "local" has been deemed illegal on many occasions by the FCC. If is the entire route that determines jurisdiction not the last portion. As soon as enough customers are using the product and AT&T/Verizon are losing money, they will fight that battle at the FCC/courts and ring the death bell for ooma.

According to the FAQ at the Ooma website, the devices work with or without a landline. The landline connection is only for backup.

The other thing you need to understand before slapping down $400 is that these free domestic calls may only last for 3 years. Their website's press release states, "Unlimited calling within the US with no monthly fees is subject to all of the terms and conditions in the ooma license and user agreement and shall apply to purchasers during the white rabbit and promotional period. Purchasers during the promotional period will have this no monthly charge service for at least three years."

So that's still cheaper than most VoIP providers for unlimited ($11.11/Month).

What concerns me is how they can possibly turn a profit. I'd love to read their business plan... "We barely break even, but we make it up in volume!"

-Al

I find it hard to believe it would work globally, in North America where where local calls are free... yeah maybe if ppl are confortable with its security... but outside the US? Unlikely... or maybe its only targetted for US customers?

When ooma says it has the same up-time as a Class 5 telephone swith (99.999%), they must be comparing apples and oranges. The user really doesn't care what the reliability of the ooma box is by itself, but of the telephone service. Outages of power, Internet, and cut-off calls caused by the subscriber whose line you're using will prevent that level of service.

See other issues at ooma-revealed.info.

there ain?t no such thing as a free lunch For example, Cambridge, Mass.-based Vertical Communications recently released an all-in-one called Xcelerator IP, whose router handles up to 24 VoIP-enabled phones; allows the office-wide wireless networking of computers, printers, fax machines and card readers; provides voice mail and an auto attendant; falls back to an analog phone line if your broadband goes down or for 911 access; and is configurable through a Web-browser interface.
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