Does OOMA spell glooma for regular phone companies?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 19 July 2007 19:28

Opinion and Analysis

A new Internet phone company called Ooma, backed by former execs of big tech firms and even Punk’d star Ashton Kutchner on board, promises to change the phone market forever, but will they?
Ooma, a name chosen to be easy to say and evoke simplicity, is the name of a new peer-to-peer Internet phone company that promises to give US users long distance calling in the US free of charge.

Unfortunately, there’s a catch – you’ll need to pay US $399 for the Ooma device, you need broadband, and you’ll need to keep your regular phone line.

The company says that it has former execs from Apple, TiVo, Cisco, Intel, Yahoo! and Napster on board, and boasts that “The very fact that there isn't a phone company mogul in our mix proves we're approaching telecommunications in an entirely new way”, although this statement hardly makes me cartwheel for joy down the street .

You’ll find a more detailed explanation of the convoluted way that Ooma works at the New York Times , while BusinessWeek explains that venture capitalist firms Draper Fisher Jurvetson and The Founders Fund pumped in US $27 million – and didn’t even know what Ooma was .

In a world where regular phone calls are cheap as chips, phone cards are available from every corner store, Skype is an unstoppable global phenomenon and even Apple has created their own cell phone, Ooma’s rather late entry into the game just seems odd.

Of course, Ooma are promising a revolution. I wish Ooma success – if they can crack the market and truly deliver a useful and inexpensive, even free service, then good luck to them.

But to me, it just sounds like so much hype, with or without Ashton Kutcher as the Creative Director, partly responsible for the logo. Heck, Kutcher's involvement makes me wonder if I'm about to get Punk'd.

Hmm.. I think I’ll let Ooma’s call go straight to voicemail, and just watch from the sidelines and stick to my trusty cell phone before taking the plunge into yet another VoIP Internet phone call at cheap prices or even free, and see just who it is that gets Punk'd in the end, be it consumers, phone companies or Ooma!