Ooma’s disruptive VoIP service is hitting Canada per an announcement Wednesday morning. Starting today, Canadian consumers can order the VoIP-in-a-box and place and receive phone calls to anyone within the wide expanse that is the great white north. That is, of course, if that person has plenty of room under their Internet cap.
The pricing scheme is just like that found in the States. The $229 CAD Ooma Telo device offers free basic telephony all by itself and for $9.99 a month, buyers can opt for the Premier service that offers features like call screening, three-way conferencing, call forwarding, and different ring tone options. Plus, Ooma is now allowing US Prime subscribers to place calls to Canada for free but it hasn’t been announced if it works the other way.
Ooma isn’t the first mass VoIP service to hit Canada; Vonage launched there in 2004. For better or worse, Ooma does VoIP differently by rolling in the cost of the service into the cost of the device rather than a traditional monthly bill like Vonage.
The current trend of Internet caps by Canadian ISPs might make some consumers think twice about moving their phone service to the Internet. However, VoIP services generally do not use that much bandwidth but it’s probably worth spending 10 minutes investigating how much data you’re currently consuming. You don’t want your Internet suddenly throttled while you’re talking to your Mom — or maybe you do.