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September 26, 2007
Tom Evslin: Rent vs. Buy - ooma
Tom Evslin: Rent vs. Buy - ooma
"...This is an interesting idea but not as unique as ooma claims (I’m not commenting on their patent since I haven’t read it). Ham radio operators provided local bridges for each other into phone systems even in pre-Internet days. VoIP pioneer Jeff Pulver, probably building on his ham radio background, supported gateways in the 1990s version of FreeWorldDialup (note: FreeWorldDialup is now FWD International and I’m an investor in and board member of that along with Jeff but I was not associated with the original company).
Predictions:
* One way or another, phone calls will become as free of incremental charges as email is today.
* The carriers will take legal action to block ooma service. They will claim that customers are not allowed to provide this kind of bridging and that ooma is disguising “long distance” calls as local calls. Make no mistake, success by ooma and/or others lke them would leave a big hole in the domestic termination revenues which at&t and Verizon and other last mile telco providers receive and domestic termination is very lucrative.
* You’ll hear more about gateways – at least on Fractals of Change."
Tags: FWD, ooma, VoIP, Tom Evslin, Daniel Berninger, Jeff Pulver
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Posted by jeff on September 26, 2007 12:09 AM | Permalink
Additional resources: Watch PrimeTime TV Shows | Watch the Jeff Pulver Show | Jeff's Qik Videos
Comments
What I find is suprising in not yet appearing(and mabye it has appeared and I can not find it) are established netwroks of gateways into the expensive european cell phone networks. Per minute charges range from about 0.15 to over a dollar from nearly any carrier and VOIP is actually more expensive than the best deals with old fashioned scrath off calling cards for most of these networks. On the other hand nearly every european operator offer quite inexpensive plans with unlimited in network calls but you cannot call across networks without hefty per minute charges.
The mnodern version of a ham radio phone gateway or voip gateway would be a bank of cell phone with unlimted in network sims tied into a voip network that allow free calling(free per minute for members) to cell phone numbers on that network via voip.
I may indeed work to organise such a calling club with each member providing a phone linked to a sip address for access of other club members.
Anyone find this idea interesting?
The SatPhoneGuy
Posted by: satphoneguy at September 27, 2007 12:05 AM
Hi Jeff,
I've got a "steak dinner" bet with Thomas Howe about Ooma you can read about here http://thomashowe.blogspot.com/2007/07/application-of-week-ooma-yes-weve-hit.html
Alec Saunders is acting as judge.
I guess we'll see who is right in about 9.5 months from now :)
Personally I think it was an easy call and I made the judgement not on the underlying technology but the fact that finally someone designed an ATA that didn't look like crap and finally took basic functionality and design aspects into the look/feel and operation of their ATA.
Placing an 'access voicemail' button on the ATA itself is such a simple basic design idea yet the 100 or so proceeding models that you and I have seen have never implemented this.
Yes ATA's are sometimes a 'cost of build' item but most times I think it's the little things that make a company succeed - it shows smart thinking of their management so regardless of what 'lawsuits or other similar hurdles' they get hit with I thik that Ooma will be a long term company to watch.
Regards,
Dean Collins
www.Cognation.net
Posted by: Dean Collins at September 26, 2007 10:50 AM