Ooma lets you make free phone calls by Corina Ciubotaru

Ooma is the newest way to make free phone calls over the Internet. You've probably heard of free calls before and don't trust them very much because they're not that reliable, but ooma's creators say this little gadget is different. Although it makes calls through the Internet, it also uses a classic phone line and you can still own a subscription for when the Web connection is down and you need to make an urgent call to, say, the fire department. The person you want to talk to doesn't need to have an ooma, and all domestic calls are free, while international ones are very cheap. An ooma hub costs $399 and you can also connect a second line through a $45 ooma Scout; you don't pay any subscription. The whole system is based on getting data from your phone to another ooma close to the person you're calling, via the Internet, thereby reducing costs to the ones of local calls. It's pretty obvious now why the company needs to find as many users as it can in the shortest amount of time. All the users' free calls to friends without ooma are actually paid by the company and even if the idea in itself is very idealistic and convenient, the $27 million they have in venture capital will only last for so long. They have just begun selling the device, after giving it away on an invitation-only basis for a couple of months and have now reached 750 users. According to their estimates, they would need more than 50,000 of them across the U.S. to make the calls profitable.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070918/ap_on_hi_te/free_phone_calls;_ylt=Apa8CYcE.CXF8Fa6JGwPdsys0NUE

by Corina Ciubotaru for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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