Free VoIP calls are not free in a strict sense. The customers are charged directly or indirectly. First of all, they need to bear the hardware costs. If not, the membership fees which may be very inexpensive.
Viewed so, it would be more appropriate to discuss Ooma’s free offer. The Palo Alto, California-based startup has just extended call-routing devices dubbed as Ooma Hub and Ooma Scout devices using which the customers can enjoy unlimited free calls anywhere in the USA.
The introductory price for Ooma Hub is $399 and $39.95 for Ooma Scout. These devices are available from company’s website. With this expenditure, the customer can enjoy life-time free VoIP services and other Ooma services such as ooma Instant Second Line and the ooma Broadband Answering Machine.
It seems that Ooma is taking a different approach to lure residential customers. Instead of spending money in marketing and advertisements like Vonage, it simply markets the devices for unlimited home calling.
Mark Sullivan has raised an interesting question regarding the survival of this new startup.
He asks,
So the key questions in Ooma’s future are these: Can it grow its network of local Hubs fast enough to dramatically reduce the connection fees it’s paying to connect calls outside its network? And will mainstream consumers lay down $400 for a piece of hardware and a promise of free calls forever?
He adds,
If the answer to either is no, Ooma might quickly burn through its venture capital and disappear like so many other VoIP upstarts.
