How does OOMA work? Get this on your FAQ Page!!

[dsb]

Just purchased and activated your product. Seems to work great so far but I’m curious how well it will work when my number is finished porting and I fully disconnect the landline.

This service seems too good to be true. In doing research I’m finding a lot of posts claiming OOMA relies on a certain percentage of customers keeping their land line. I’ve read OOMA is a peer to peer network and when I call long distance my call is routed though somebody else’s hub and out their land line! They claim this whole process is “transparent” to all but it sounds really unsecure, not tamper proof and illegal. When speaking with a tech rep at OOMA he explained this is not how the network works.

If this is true then you REALLY need to explain that on your FAQ page. You are losing a lot of potential customers that research OOMA and read about the “piggy-backing” network. No one likes the idea of calls being routed through their house.

Can somebody explain to me the basics of OOMA. I’m not sure how you can make money with only the possibility of a customer percentage paying for the premier service.

Vonage costs $25 a month. If this company really is on the up and up then I don’t see how Vonage can stay in business. Good luck to you guys and I'll have my friends on this network soon if I can get a better feeling about the network infastructure.

Thank you.

[scots]

The "peer to peer" technology is no longer used by ooma, hence the reason you don't see anything about it in their FAQ. They stopped doing this a while back, and the articles you're reading about this on the internet are either old or written by clueless people. Nobody is required to keep a landline for use with ooma, and ooma doesn't expect anyone to have or keep a landline.

[Bobby B]

scots is right, we are no longer using Distributed Termination -- there are a lot of old articles out there. Perhaps we should add something to the FAQ page or Knowledgebase about this.

This was a blurb that I posted to the Amazon forums (topic: "Questions about security and privacy") recently...

Just a FYI -- ooma is not routing calls over other user's landlines (e.g. Distributed Termination). Any mention of this was removed from the user T&C's and the ooma website from the website a few months ago. The original intent of this "people-powered" network was to save costs with calling. Unfortunately it lent itself to be a poor user experience due to the fact we needed to block the outgoing caller-ID (e.g. a call going over another user's landline would show as "unknown" as the caller-ID instead of the caller's true name). Also, our business plan went through a couple revisions last year (starting with separating out enhanced features -- ooma Premier -- from the core service features and further recognizing calling economies of scale). As a result, we are able to continue to offer free phone service as a sustainable and scalable business.

[dsb]

Thank you Bobby. I highly recommend you clear this up and get this on your FAQ page ASAP. I really think a lot of people are bailing on you guys because of this misinformation. I almost did myself.

Still not sure how you are going to survive on a $100/year optional premier service but I'll go along for the ride and promote this as much as possible.

[zeke]

I couldn't agree w/ dsb's comments more strongly. In fact, forget about the faq, put it on the home page - no, wait, make it part of the company logo. In looking into ooma, I had just about decided against it solely because of the security issue until I stumbled upon this thread. The original articles raising this concern might be old, but they are still being refered to, and make some valid points in my opinion. The only defense of the p2p network using users' landlines I could find was some statements to the effect that we should trust ooma, they were very,very concerned about security, and they had some super-secret technology to prevent eavesdropping, which everyone else said was unpreventable. To be honest even tho I just signed up, I'm still a bit nervous about how it works. My impression from initially reading about ooma was that the p2p network was the central idea that made the whole system viable. To hear that it is no longer used is a bit like hearing Thomas Edison say about his Revised Electric Light Bulb that "well, we changed our business plan, so we're no longer using the 'electric' part (Of course you can still hook the device up to electricity, just as a backup, even tho of course we don't need it or use it)".

ps I have to say I don't think I've ever seen something like this with such overwhelmingly positive responses in online user reviews, which is a significant factor in my decision to sign up.

[rtaylor@echo360.com]

I am a geek and have theories about how OOMA works. It would be fantastic if OOMA could provide details with official info on their web. I have been talking to friends and family about the service, but I don't have all the info I would like. I was assuming the service was based on regional "Call Managers" similar to a CISCO VOIP solution, but I don't really know.

I just convinced my neighbor to sign up with OOMA. She received her OOMA TELO earlier this week. She has a re-occurring issue with her land line and can't wait to get rid of it. My neighbor is not very technical so I am setting up her system this weekend. After she purchased the TELO she heard some negative things about the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) communication from someone in her family. They indicated this P2P setup was going to cause them grief because there are not enough OOMA units installed in her area to support the network and provide proper coverage. Based on the comments above it appears the P2P approach is not in use. That begs the question ... "How does it work?" We live in a rural area of western Maryland. I am wondering if my OOMA TELO would perform better in a big city like NYC or Boston. Does anyone have info regarding OOMA overall performance in the City Vs. Countryside?

[highq]

I suppose you really enjoy spam, otherwise why would you use your email address as your user name in this Froum?

[southsound]

I am a geek and have theories about how OOMA works. It would be fantastic if OOMA could provide details with official info on their web. I have been talking to friends and family about the service, but I don't have all the info I would like. I was assuming the service was based on regional "Call Managers" similar to a CISCO VOIP solution, but I don't really know.

I just convinced my neighbor to sign up with OOMA. She received her OOMA TELO earlier this week. She has a re-occurring issue with her land line and can't wait to get rid of it. My neighbor is not very technical so I am setting up her system this weekend. After she purchased the TELO she heard some negative things about the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) communication from someone in her family. They indicated this P2P setup was going to cause them grief because there are not enough OOMA units installed in her area to support the network and provide proper coverage. Based on the comments above it appears the P2P approach is not in use. That begs the question ... "How does it work?" We live in a rural area of western Maryland. I am wondering if my OOMA TELO would perform better in a big city like NYC or Boston. Does anyone have info regarding OOMA overall performance in the City Vs. Countryside?

Just a FYI -- ooma is not routing calls over other user's landlines (e.g. Distributed Termination). Any mention of this was removed from the user T&C's and the ooma website from the website a few months ago. The original intent of this "people-powered" network was to save costs with calling. Unfortunately it lent itself to be a poor user experience due to the fact we needed to block the outgoing caller-ID (e.g. a call going over another user's landline would show as "unknown" as the caller-ID instead of the caller's true name). Also, our business plan went through a couple revisions last year (starting with separating out enhanced features -- ooma Premier -- from the core service features and further recognizing calling economies of scale). As a result, we are able to continue to offer free phone service as a sustainable and scalable business.

You might have missed Bobby B's quote from a few posts up so I quoted it above. Also note that this thread is more than two years old. I bought my first ooma ( a core system with hub and scout ) about the same time that this thread was last active. I keep my ooma systems, both the core package and a Telo, completely separate from my landline. But even if I didn't, ooma would never use either of the systems for outgoing calls. That business model and technology was DOA and abandoned long ago as Bobby B states. I also live on Harstine Island near the small town of Shelton in Western Washington - probably much more rural than your Maryland home. The only thing that determines quality is the consistent quality of your Internet source. You and your neighbor should have great quality calls if your Internet connection is good. I only have 1.5mb down and 768 up DSL and have no problems powering 3 computers, a Wii, 2 ReplayTVs, an ooma core system, a Telo, and a Cisco PAP2T. Thank you for helping your neighbor with the installation. We're here to help any way we can.