The Ooma telco revolution
I am reading about the Ooma service and box, just being released in the U.S. Om's got more details but here is the summary:
So how does Ooma manage “free” voice calls? Say you call Manhattan. Ooma routes the call to an Ooma box to the 212 area code, with the local carrier accepting it as a regular outbound call. It works even if the destination number lacks an Ooma box.
It’s free to you, though it does cost the Ooma box in far-flung area codes, but most of the local call plans are flat rate and come with unlimited calling. Ooma piggybacks on existing phone services, bringing all the things you expect from a traditional phone service, like dialing 911. (Walt Mossberg gives his thumbs up to this service.)
In telecom lingo, this is called distributed termination. The more boxes on the Ooma network, the more termination points - and , more voice calls the system can carry to the public switched phone networks.Think of it another way: What the PC did to the mainframe, Ooma is doing it to the telecom switch.
I cannot overstate the wrath Ooma will feel from incumbents. Since Ooma threatens the carriers’ core business, they’ll do their best to crush it, arguing Ooma bypasses the local access regulatory structure.
Well, this is incredible indeed. And while simple in its essence, it is probably a lot of technology crammed into the Ooma box.
While this happens there, here in good old New Zealand we are still trying to unbundle the local loop, have naked DSL and a decent broadband service...
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Comment by James, on 24-JUL-2007 18:33
Not to rain on your parade, but we already do this with an Asterisk box set up by some local Kiwis.
Works through our existing PBX, need no special box, I still use the same desk phone and do nothing special.
Calls from our office to the US are completely free, and various other setups to get lowest-cost routing are also in place.
Comment by Mike, on 28-JUL-2007 18:21
Your comment: "I cannot overstate the wrath Ooma will feel from incumbents."
In fact, all the phone company has to do is charge every such OOMA user twice or three times as much for their phone line, since they are no longer using it for "residential" service, and that completely kills the service. And I'm quite sure that the PSC is every state will back them up on this.
Another reason why OOMA can't work. In the end, no one will allow their land-line to be used for this.
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Comment by Stu Fleming, on 19-JUL-2007 23:35
"While this happens there, here in good old New Zealand we are still trying to unbundle the local loop, have naked DSL and a decent broadband service..."
I don't think this is fair to the few innovative NZ companies that are producing VOIP and Internet service innovations.
While it may not be possible (and indeed be undesireable) to build national infrastructure to compete with incumbents, it is certainly possible to build smaller-scale offerings that do provide quality service (and which should be encouraged).