Ooma has created a peer-to-peer phone service intended to eliminate long-distance costs. They do this by having Ooma devices in homes. When you make a long distance call, the ooma device sends your voice over the internet to the ooma device of the person you are calling. The call then connects to the local telephone line and tricks it into thinking its a local call.

A genius idea. Very cool to see people are trying new things. The only down side is that the caller and the person that is being called both have to have this device. Ooma plans to charge $399 for each one of these devices. That means that you would have to spend over $400 in long distance calls for this to even be profitable. Yes, for a few people who keep in very close contact with long-distance friends or relatives, this would be nice for them. I don't see the majority of people buying this though. It's just too expensive.

What are your thoughts?

Edit: Full story here: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/p...ephone-service/

 

 

 

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Seems like a pretty interesting idea, but would that be considered legal since you are cheating the phone system? I really don't think that even if you buy an Ooma system, your friends or family you are calling may not be willing to spend that much money. Maybe in time the cost will go down but I still don't think it'd be really that worth it.

For me personally I know it would be pointless because I am not charged extra for my long distance phone calls used by my cell phone so I can make long distance calls for regular price really anytime. All I have to do is use my cell phone. I think lots of plans have that because my plan is pretty basic and it's a family share plan. I'd recommend this instead of Ooma. I really don't think Ooma will be all the successful.

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Wow, that's pretty interesting. I would love to be able to make my calls to France free... but buying the device, in my opinion, isn't really worth it. I think i'll stick to buying international phone cards and getting charged a few cents a minute .
I know that the price of the phone cards will eventually add up to the price of the Ooma... but it's just the fact that the person you're calling has to have the device as well... that's just not a trend that's going to happen anytime soon.

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