I’m glad to finally have an answer to the local service adds/changes/deletes questions. That makes the math possible now. In my case, my local service monthly cost would actually go UP with Ooma by about $9 ($5 additional for unlimited local and $4 for “busy call forwarding”) so Ooma only saves me money if my domestic long-distance bills average more then $9 per month, which in my case they don’t (the equivalent of about 300 minutes of long-distance calls, and my average over the long run is about half that per month). So there is no cost justification for Ooma for me - I would have to justify it on the basis of the extra features being worth the $450 hub/scout plus an extra $5 - $10 per month in costs to me.

So OOMA admits that they delete every feature I have with the phone company. What if I want Call Waiting for my own calls? The rational way to handle it would be to allow me to keep Call Waiting (to be applied to calls I make to local or calls I receive) and for the OOMA hub to send the Cancel Call Waiting code for any call it makes from my hub for someone else.

About the BCF (I thought it was CFB) forwarding to a local number. The question still remains: Who pays for this other local number and line? If I’m the only OOMA subscriber in my area, then someone has to pay for one phone line just for me. That’s way too expensive. If I’m in an area with many OOMA subscribers and there are only a few of these local numbers to forward any of them to, there could often be times when they are all busy and the call to me is blocked - i.e., no “Instant Second Line”. It’s really a “Sometimes Second Line”.

Considering the large number of “local” areas, I find it impossible to believe that there will be another local line to support this capability for every OOMA subscriber.

And if OOMA subscribes me to BCF (or CFB), can I deactivate it on a per call basis when I make local calls through my hub? Since the functionality it is trying to duplicate is Call Waiting, I would certainly want the ability to Cancel it for certain calls.

In a response to another blog thread here: http://www.atmasphere.net/wp/a.....ent-277691

Dennis Peng (from Ooma I think) provides an answer: “when ooma provisions your phone line to work with our landline product, we will strip all features from the phone line except Caller ID (if it is already present - we will not add it). We will then add Busy Call Forwarding (BCF). It depends on where you live, but in California, a basic flat-rate residential plan is $10.69. BCF is $4.00. Add in the taxes and surchages, and that line will cost around $21/month. Depending on what features and calling packages you had before, this could be more, less, or about the same as what you currently pay. ooma BCF’s to a local number, so you should never have to pay incremental charges for calls to the second line as long as you have a flat-rate local plan.”

So clearly, the customer pays, although Ooma apparently provides a “local” number, so there should be no additional per minute costs. This would suggest that Ooma service must be restricted to areas where they can get a local number (or else the customer agrees to pay toll costs for these BCF calls).

The break even point on this box is driven by the actual monthly cost without Ooma (before) and the actual monthly costs, including any changes to the cost of the landline service, after.

Others have reported that Ooma makes some deletes/adds/changes to the customer’s landline service. As Mike P asks, what are those, who pays, and how will they affect my bill (such as new minutes for busy-forwarded calls).

Further, all the hype is around the “P2P” model, where calls placed by other Ooma users may be terminated using my landline service. How will this affect the costs on my line? In my case, I currently save about $5 per month by using a “per call” local plan, rather than an unlimited local plan. Is that $5 a new cost I will have to pay with Ooma?

The math here is quite simple. The difference between my before costs and after costs. Ooma can only impact the US domestic “long-distance” portion of our bill, which for a lot of us, is not the most significant costs, but regardless, that’s the amount we’re working with. That savings plus the impact to my AT&T bill is what tells me when (if?) I break even. That’s why we need to know how Ooma affects our landline bill (the actual amount we will pay every month).

So, I am not a huge telephony person who knows a whole lot about the tech aspects of some of this stuff, but are we saying that the 2nd line is not actually a 2nd line to the ‘regular’ phone world, and that anyone that has an Ooma box will actually just forward the call to a 2nd line ‘inside’ the Ooma residence itself?

Also, regarding the question about security, can my landline phone provider tell the difference between my Ooma traffic and other ‘regular’ traffic. If so, can they prevent me from assisting my Ooma friends in allowing them a virtual local presence? What about my data provider (if they are different than the landline carrier)? Can these companies disconnect me because I am assisting someone in a way they may see as fraudulent use of their service?

Aside from being curious about these topics, I am quite happy with the service so far. I am trying to get some friends to try it out, but they are skeptical. What happens if they get an Ooma but do not hook it up? Will they be charged?

We need a white rabbit forum somewhere so that fellow subscribers can find each other and make some LD calls. =)

I have no doubt that Call Forwarding on Busy can get a call to another line. My questions are: Who pays for the CFB service? Who pays for the second phone line and number that it needs to forward to? If it’s a distinct line (and number) for each OOMA subscriber, where does it terminate? Who pays for it? If many busy lines forward to a single phone number for entry into the IP world, how is the desired called number passed to the IP gateway so that it knows where to route the call?

I know that it can be done. The issue is that it can’t be done for “free” which is the OOMA claim.

Jeff Peck
ooma, Inc.

Would a business be any more prone to allow their phone lines to be used by unknown people or to allow their business calls to be monitored by unknown people?

I don’t think so.

Ooma should immediately consider steering this product strategy from the residence, to the small and medium sized business, where multiple lines, features, and small but significant outlay’s for premises equipment are the norm, rather than the exception.

Such ‘far reach’ responses, especially when posted in these early adopter forums, such as TechCrunch, are an early indication of a potentially weak or misguided product strategy.

If Ooma is counting on a a calculation of a 3 year user retention, either in actuality or in actual customer captivity, they are betting against the odds.

The hardware and technology here is innovative, but is wagging the marketing dog.

I don’t understand why Jeff keeps insisting there is automatically something called a “second line”. If A’s line is busy with B’s OOMA call placed through A’s OOMA box, A’s line is busy, and another caller in the PSTN trying to call A will get busy signal. A’s line can only support the one call placed from the OOMA subscriber. There is no “second line” provided by the phone company, and there is nothing that OOMA can do to create one to handle a second call coming from the PSTN.

Jeff must be talking about something else, different from what people have been asking about. He seems to talking about 2 lines inside the residence “behind” the OOMA boxes.

Also, Jeff keeps insisting that the hub includes circuitry to detect and prevent eavesdropping, in spite of several comments telling how easy it is to do undetected. And I doubt that it would be considered a felony to listen in on ones own phone line.

I think John in #98 accurately detailed just a few of the problems with OOMA. I have many more.

Eric

Q: Caller id?
A: when a call is terminated through an ooma box, caller id is blocked.
If your call *must* have caller id, then dial *82 before dialing.

Q: when your line is busy?
A: the ooma Instant Second Line feature allows you to receive a call to your PSTN number or place an ouboutnd call, even while your PSTN line is busy. The second call does not need to be to or from an ooma subscriber.

Q: gateway failures? (intrinsic, accidental, or malicious)
A: Indeed, it is possible that your call could be interrupted. ooma’s network is designed to detect and route around unreliable gateway nodes.

Q: wiretapping?
A: ooma includes technology to detect and prevent eavesdropping.
There are many devices and many techniques to tap phone lines;
but to do so without legal authorization is a felony.

Jeff Peck
ooma, Inc.

Jeff Peck
Principal Architect
ooma, inc.

HIPPA/FERPA: ooma is [initially] selling to residential consumers.

Michael #56: Is the phone line requirement due to no E-911?
– yes and no: the current discounted sales ofer is for landline users that can build the ooma network; Many customers have a landline bundled with their DSL, so it comes for free. ooma believes that integration with the landline is the preferred solution for people who want no compromises in reliability and 911 behavior. E911 will be available as an option at the public launch in September.

I think this sounds like a great idea on the surface but with all start-ups, needs to have testers to work out the kinks…I would be more then willing to be part of this process (the non-landline beta). Please let me know if you need help with this beta.