Thanks to mobile plans with thousands of free minutes, in-network calling options and even mobile VOIP options many consumers have ditched their traditional landlines. But Michael has posted over at sister site TechCrunch about VOIP startup Ooma and its new free consumer phone service. This service might just offer mobile phones a bit of competition.
Ooma is using an innovative peer-to-peer architecture to reduce their overhead, and as a result are charging only for the hardware. Calls within the U.S. are free. Additionally, unlike with many VOIP services you can actually reach 911, and there is even built in answering machine functionality with Ooma.
So is Ooma going to pose a serious challenge to mobile handsets? It still has issues for those of us who like to do the “walk and talk” on our mobile phones, plus it doesn’t offer the multimedia experience that is slowly heading to handset? But as an alternative for landlines this sounds pretty interesting, and could be a good combo for those of us who already rely heavily on our mobile phones, but need something resembling a landline.
Michael was able to sit down and talk to Ashton Kutcher, the company’s creative director. In addition to talking about Ooma, Kutcher also shared his insight on the iPhone and even talked about his upcoming movie.