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Ooma CEO Eric Stang Shows Off The New HD2 VoIP Handset

Jordan Crook — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:29:54 +0000

At CES 2012, there are quite a few products that would totally change the way you do things (or at least save you some money) that just don’t get enough coverage. We reported on Ooma’s new HD2 VoIP handset, but nothing beats getting the facts straight from the CEO of the company.

Luckily, Eric Stang had a chance to meet with us and chat it up. He explained that, while unnecessary, the HD2 Revel pretty much eliminates the need for a land-line. It’s basically a smartphone (or a smartphone-like handset) that pairs with the Ooma base station to offer VoIP services in your home. It also offers HD calling and caller ID with images collected from your Facebook, Google and Yahoo friends.

The handset should be available in February at select retailers and Ooma.com for $60.

The $60 Ooma HD2 Uses Facebook, Google And Yahoo For Picture Caller-ID

Matt Burns — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:00:25 +0000

Home phones are dumb phones defined. At best they feature a backlit four-line display. At worst they suck.

Well, Ooma just introduced the HD2, which not only pairs pefectly with the company’s VoIP service but offers a bunch of functions standard to feature phones. A 2-inch color LCD features picture caller-ID with the images garnered from the owner’s Facebook, Google and Yahoo friends. This can be managed either from on the handset or through the My Ooma web portal. But wait! There is more.

“Because Ooma is an Internet-based platform, it allows us to add innovative and useful features more typically associated with a smartphone and blend the mobile and home phone experiences,” said Dennis Peng, Vice President of Product Management at Ooma said in a released statement.

The handset can also be configured to be used as a baby monitor and users can even collate friends into groups designated by a custom MP3 ringtone. Ooma claims the handset features double the fidelity of a standard phone call thanks to something they HD Voice.

The handset should be available in February at select retailers and Ooma.com for $60. Of course buyers will also need the appropriate Ooma base station to use it.

Ooma Raises $17.3 Million For Its “Free” Home Calling Service

Alexia Tsotsis — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:04:58 +0000

VoIP free domestic calling service Ooma has raised another $17.3 million in funding from existing investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Founder’s Fund and others. This brings the company’s total funding to a sizeable $83.3 million.

What’s compelling about Ooma is that company sort of flips the Vonage model on its axis — While Vonage charges a monthly service fee and gives away its VoIP hardware, Ooma sells its Telo product for $200 and then offers the domestic calling capabilities gratis for as long as customers own the product.

Ooma also has international calling plans, starting at a penny a minute to call 60 different countries.

Marketing exec Jim Gustke tells me that the 50 person, Palo Alto based company will be using the new funds to expand its marketing efforts and will be revealing new product developments at CES. “Stay tuned!” Gustke says.

Ooma VOIP Service Is Down Nationwide

Chris Velazco — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:50:15 +0000

Reports are trickling into to our tipline that Ooma, a popular VOIP service, is currently experiencing major network issues. Currently, Ooma’s phone service seems offline nationwide, and their website and support forums are working sporadically if at all.

Some users (mostly in California) are reporting that their service is returning, but right now, it would appear that a majority of subscribers are unable to make or receive phone calls. Another outage similar in scale to this one occurred in 2009, with service remaining offline for nearly 6 hours.

Concerned customers who attempted to reach out to Ooma’s main office were treated to a canned message stating that the office was closed, and the voice mailbox was soon filled. Rumors have begun to swirl among affected customers on the DSL Reports forums that Ooma is in the process of shutting down, but we can confirm that this is not that case.

A few calls to the Ooma customer service line yielded a brief conversation with a rep, who states that they are aware of the problem, and that service would we be restored within two hours. Apparently, once service is restored, the Ooma hub in customers’ homes will begin to work again without any input from the user. Affected customers should keep their eyes peeled for the tell-tale blue light on their hubs. This timetable will likely be little comfort to those affected, some of whom use Ooma as their business phone service. Updates are coming at a blistering pace, so all you Ooma users should stay tuned.

UPDATE #1: The Ooma Status Twitter account is acknowledging the issue, no update on ETA. Ooma website is still down.

Sporadic failures on our Internet connectivity is affecting many customers. We are working to resolve the issue ASAP.—
ooma support (@ooma_status) August 17, 2011

UPDATE #2: Word on Ooma’s Facebook page and on DSLReports is that service is slowly coming back online. Keep looking for that blue light on the hub.

Ooma Adds 911 Notifications To All Phones

John Biggs — Tue, 10 May 2011 14:07:43 +0000

If you dial 911 one on a VoIP phone you might be in a bit of trouble – many systems don’t support the location services most 911 operators use to find out where you are when you’re in trouble. So what to do? Well, Ooma has added a feature that should assuage the worry slightly. They’ve added 911 notification services that contact up to three people via email or text.

You can add the feature to your current Ooma line. It will trigger as soon as someone dials 911 and you, along with the dispatcher, will know something is wrong. It gives you a bit of peace of mind and it lets you confirm there is actually a problem and it’s just not the kids trying all the possible three-number combinations on your Ooma phone.

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Ooma Unleashes "HD Telephone Calls" With PureVoice Technology

John Biggs — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 14:33:17 +0000

Ooma, my secret weapon when it comes to reducing the price of overseas calls, has just announced PureVoice, an “HD” voice technology that offers a “superior home telephony experience.” Essentially the system uses redundancy and compression to transmit voice packets at higher quality than you’d find in normal telephone conversations although, presumably, you’re still burdened by legacy voice technology on the carrier’s side.

You can check out a goofy demo of PureVoice on Ooma’s site. Press release follows.

Ooma Sets Industry Standard for Sound Quality with availability of High-Definition Voice Technology
Ooma HD Voice Delivers Natural, Life-Like Voice Quality
Palo Alto, CA — October 6, 2010 —
Ooma, Inc. today announced that High-Definition (HD) Voice, the latest component of Ooma PureVoice™ technology, is available on its award-winning Ooma Telo system. This marks the first time consumers can enjoy telephone calls in HD, further enriching the calling experience for those wanting a superior home telephony experience.
Ooma raised the bar on voice quality with the introduction of Ooma PureVoice technology in April, delivering excellent voice quality over substandard or overloaded Internet connections. Now, with the addition of Ooma HD Voice, Ooma Telo users can experience phone calls with twice the fidelity of a standard phone line when calling another Ooma Telo user. Beginning today, the HD Voice update will automatically roll out to all customers with an Ooma Telo.
“Telephone call quality is an area of technology which has yet to evolve since the 1960s – before many of us were born,” said Richard Tehrani, CEO of TMC. “Thankfully, VoIP allows call quality to improve drastically and Ooma’s decision to focus on this area of the market is impressive as it allows Ooma Telo users to take advantage of their leading-edge HD call quality at a reasonable cost. This focus on the sound of phone calls coupled with Ooma’s relentless addition of new features are two reasons to consider the company’s products for your home or business.”
“There’s a clear difference in the way our customers experience phone calls with friends and family using Ooma HD Voice,” said Jim Gustke, Vice President of Marketing at Ooma. “As consumers we demand the highest resolution viewing experience on our TV’s – now it’s time to expect the same from the telephone. Ooma sets the benchmark with its Ooma HD Voice offering, enabling rich, life-like sound quality.”
Ooma PureVoice HD Technology is now composed of five key components:
Ooma HD Voice: Ooma is the first residential phone service to support high definition voice technology. Compared to conventional telephones, Ooma HD Voice doubles the audio frequencies transmitted to deliver a richer, more natural sounding conversation to calls between Ooma Telo customers. An Ooma Telo Handset or HD compatible telephone is required to support Ooma HD Voice.
Additional components of Ooma PureVoice HD that were previously announced include:
• Advanced voice compression: Ooma uses an advanced voice compression algorithm that reduces bandwidth consumption by 60 percent over standard VoIP technology and is more capable of withstanding packet loss without degradation. This leaves customers with more bandwidth for all other online activities and increases the likelihood that voice traffic will be delivered properly by an ISP.
• Wire-speed QoS:  Even though Ooma uses only a fraction of the bandwidth of standard VoIP technology, preserving voice quality requires that those packets arrive on time. The Ooma Telo prioritizes voice packets without slowing down the rest of a customer’s network. This way, customers can enjoy crystal clear calls even when uploading video clips, for example.
• Adaptive redundancy:  Packet loss is the enemy of VoIP – it can cause voice to sound stuttered or garbled. The Ooma Telo detects packet loss on Internet connections and automatically sends redundant packets to boost the clarity of phone calls.
• Encrypted calls:  Ooma takes privacy seriously. We use the same encryption technology to protect conversations that governments use to protect classified data. This makes Ooma even more secure than the traditional landline.

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Ooma Has New Cheap International Calling Plans

Matt Burns — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:37:55 +0000

Ooma is stepping up their offering in the international calling game. The VoIP service providers latest plans are about as competitive as can be. Watch out, Vonage, Ooma has your mom’s number.

There’s now three international plans:

$9.99 for 1,000 minutes to 70 countries
$9.99 for “bulk discount” rates to all other countries
$9.99 availble to just Ooma Premier customers combines the 1,000 minutes plan to 70 countries with the discounted rate plan for all other countries.

Of course the main difference between Ooma and other services like Vonage is that while Ooma has significantly lower calling plans (most are free), customers are required to buy pricey hardware upfront. Where with, say, Vonage, most plans include the cost of the hardware. Either way is a hell of a lot lower cost than what cable providers or traditional telphone providers charge though.

Ooma Introduces New International Calling Plans

New International Calling Plans Offer Ooma Customers More Features, Convenience, and Cost Savings

PALO ALTO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Ooma, Inc. today announced three new international calling plans that further extend the cost savings and convenience of calling friends and family around the world. With these plans Ooma customers can now call 70 countries for less than a penny per minute and call other countries at reduced “bulk discount” rates. With the introduction of these new plans and the recently announced Ooma Mobile Application, Ooma offers the most affordable and functional international calling experience.

“Ooma is committed to providing our customers the most affordable, feature rich and convenient international calling plans”
“Ooma is committed to providing our customers the most affordable, feature rich and convenient international calling plans,” said Jim Gustke, vice president of Marketing at Ooma. “Forget about the frustrating calling card codes and their multiple access numbers and hidden fees. Stop watching the clock and worrying about expensive fee overages often associated with mobile calling plans. With Ooma’s award winning call quality and reliability, staying in touch with friends and family from around the world in crystal clear audio has never been so easy and affordable.”

Ooma offers its customers a comprehensive international calling program that affords multiple ways for consumers to save on international calls:

Ooma International Calling Bundle

Available today, Ooma customers can select from three new plans that best fit their calling lifestyle. The first plan offers Ooma customers 1,000 free minutes of talking to friends and family in 70 countries for the low rate of $9.99 per month. The second plan, which also costs $9.99 per month, offers access to significantly reduced “bulk discount” rates for use when calling all other international countries. The third plan, which is available only to Ooma Premier customers, provides both the 1,000 free minutes to call 70 countries and the access to “bulk discount” rates for calling other international countries combined for $9.99 per month. The original Ooma International calling bundle – $4.99 a month for 500 minutes of calling to 70 countries – also remains available for Premier subscribers. For more information, visit the international calling page: http://www.ooma.com/products/international-rates

Ooma Mobile Application

Save mobile minutes and up to 90 percent on international calls compared to traditional mobile calling plans with the Ooma Mobile App – now available for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad – by placing calls over any Wi-Fi connection or 3G network. For more details, visit the Ooma page in the App Store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ooma-mobile-for-iphone/id348758102?mt=8

Ooma to Ooma Calling

Placing Ooma to Ooma calls is always free. If you own an Ooma system and send an Ooma system to friends and family abroad, they can assign a U.S. phone number to that system and call back to the states for free.

About Ooma, Inc.

Founded in 2004, Ooma offers a consumer electronics device that provides free, U.S. telephone calling and advanced telephony services to its global base of customers. Ooma delivers exceptional call quality with its exclusive Ooma PureVoice™ Technology and the reliability of traditional phone service at a fraction of the cost, in a sleek and innovative design. Ooma is available at more than 4,000 leading retailers and online destinations. For more information, go to www.ooma.com or blog.ooma.com. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

The detailed terms and conditions of Ooma’s products, services, and support are fully set forth in the Terms and Conditions at http://www.ooma.com/termsandconditions. Customers pay only applicable taxes and fees. To determine the specific charges in an area, go to http://www.ooma.com/rates.

Celebrate Ooma Purevoice with a free Ooma Telo handset and 1 year of service

John Biggs — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 22:12:05 +0000

Join me in welcoming Ooma Purevoice, Ooma’s new home phone sound standard that will make all of your calls sound like you’re talking on a phone made of pure gold and unicorn fur (your experience may vary). In celebration of the technology, Ooma is offering an Ooma Telo, a Telo handset, and a year of Ooma premier service.

How do you win?

UPDATE – Congratulations to Sunil, our winner.

Comment. Tell us what famous person you would call and why. Please, don’t make it Ricky Gervais, even though he is a dream-boat. Enter once and only once and we’ll pick a winner on Wednesday.

The press release follows, but you know what to do.

OOMA PUREVOICE™ TECHNOLOGY: THE NEW STANDARD FOR HOME PHONE SOUND QUALITY
Ooma also announces Google Voice Extensions and Voicemail Transcriptions Now Available for Ooma Premier Subscribers

PALO ALTO, Calif., April 19, 2010 – Ooma, Inc. today announced the availability of Ooma PureVoice™ technology, designed to ensure excellent voice quality under the most demanding broadband conditions.

Ooma PureVoice technology is comprised of four key components:

Advanced voice compression
Ooma uses an advanced voice compression algorithm that reduces bandwidth consumption by 60% over standard VoIP technology and is more capable of withstanding packet loss without degradation. This leaves you with more bandwidth for all other online activities and increases the likelihood that your voice traffic will be delivered properly by your ISP.

Wire-speed QoS
Even though Ooma uses only a fraction of the bandwidth of standard VoIP technology, preserving voice quality requires that those packets arrive on time. The Ooma Telo prioritizes voice packets without slowing down the rest of your network. This way you can enjoy crystal clear calls even as you are uploading your latest video clips.

Adaptive redundancy
Packet loss is the enemy of VoIP – it can cause voice to sound stuttered or garbled. The Ooma Telo detects packet loss on your Internet connection and automatically sends redundant packets to boost the clarity of your phone call.

Encrypted calls
Ooma takes your privacy seriously. We use the same encryption technology to protect your conversations that governments use to protect classified data. This makes Ooma even more secure than the traditional landline.

For more information and to listen to the differences between Ooma with PureVoice Technology and other services, go to: www.ooma.com/purevoice.

“Ooma is dedicated to improving our customers’ home phone experience. With today’s announcement of PureVoice Technology and the added features of Google Voice Extensions and Voicemail Transcription for our Premier subscribers, we are excited to take the next step in making the home phone experience relevant and meaningful again” said Tami Bhaumik, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Ooma. “Ooma’s goal is to provide features that continue to improve the home calling experience, including integrating home and mobile calling features to save consumers time and money.”

Ooma has also announced the availability of new home smart phone features including Google Voice Extensions and Ooma Voicemail Transcriptions.

Google Voice Extensions
Ooma simplifies and enhances the Google Voice user experience, enabling consumers to take advantage of the complementary capabilities found in both offerings for a truly integrated and seamless phone experience. Google Voice users can integrate the Call Presentation, Listen In, and caller-ID features with their Ooma system as well as access Google Voice voicemail at a touch of a button. Now, consumers can enjoy one voicemail box for all their phone messages and present one caller-ID to all callers.

Ooma Voicemail Transcriptions
This service converts Ooma voicemail messages into text and delivers it to a mobile phone or email account associated with the Ooma profile. Benefits of Ooma Voice-to-Text:
• Read voicemail wherever there’s email access — on a mobile phone, portable device or computer
• Quickly see who called and what they called about
• No need to write down phone number or directions — it’s all there in your inbox
• Choose to respond to the voicemail through email by just forwarding your response to the caller

Ooma Voicemail-to-Text service is available to Ooma Premier subscribers only for $9.99 per month. This plan includes 40 messages; additional messages are $0.25 each.

Ooma launches Telo Pure Voice VoIP system

John Biggs — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 18:22:06 +0000

The best kept secret in VoIP with overseas relatives and friends is Ooma. For about $200 you can set your overseas loved ones up with some hot VoIP action, giving them a local telephone number they can use to call you and you can use to call them. If you travel then its great.

That said, Ooma has just released the Telo system, an improvement to its current firmware that includes iPhone/Touch support, Bluetooth support, Google Voice connectivity and voice transcription. Not an upgrade per se but an improvement.

Pure Voice improves the call audio and the additional features – Bluetooth, for example – allows you to connect to cellphones. Here’s the Google Voice juice:

Google Voice Extensions

Ooma simplifies the Google Voice user experience, enabling consumers to take advantage of the complementary capabilities found in both offerings, for a truly integrated and seamless phone experience. Google Voice users can integrate the Call Presentation, Listen In, and caller-ID features with their Ooma system as well as access Google Voice voicemail at a touch of a button.

Voicemail Transcription

Ooma customers can have inbound voicemail transcribed into text and sent as an email or text message. Users can now enjoy the convenience of reading their voicemail quickly and silently whether they are at home or on the road. Ooma voicemail transcription is human-aided to ensure the delivery of accurate and reliable messages.

Ooma Announces New Features That Connect Consumer’s Mobile Lifestyle, Provide Enhanced Voice Quality, Convenience, and Savings at International CES 2010

LAS VEGAS, January 7, 2010 – Ooma, Inc. today unveiled several new features and enhanced services for its award-winning Ooma Telo system that extend the functionality and ease of use for consumers wanting a superior home phone telephony experience. New additions to the product and services lineup include Ooma Pure Voice™, High Definition Voice, mobile phone calling with the iPhone or iPod touch, Bluetooth support, Google Voice Extensions and voicemail transcription. All new features will be demonstrated today through January 10 at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas at Ooma’s booth, Grand Lobby GL-7.

With today’s new enhancements, Ooma offers the most complete home phone solution that further expands its renowned voice quality, cost savings and ease of use beyond the home and into the mobile and business calling landscape.

“Consumers should expect the same innovation in their home phones as they experience in their mobile phones,” said Rich Buchanan, chief marketing officer at Ooma. “Consumers today are in calling purgatory – forced to find a compromise between shoddy cell phone reception in their homes and a featureless landline phone experience that hasn’t innovated since the 1970’s. Today’s announcement extends the features and functionality of our leading VoIP phone system to connect the gap that currently exists between advanced smart phone functionalities and the inherent limitations of the home phone. Ooma Telo is the smart phone designed for your home, not your pocket.”

The following new features and services for Ooma Telo are now being demonstrated at CES 2010.

Ooma Pure Voice™

Ooma raises the bar on voice quality again with the introduction of Ooma Pure Voice. Ooma now brings to the home the data redundancy sophistication normally found in industrial-grade Internet telephony products. With the explosion of bandwidth usage in the home for video streaming, photo uploads and real-time gaming, Ooma Pure Voice ensures crystal clear conversations over congested networks while maintaining low-bandwidth requirements.

High Definition Voice (HD Voice)

Ooma is the first residential phone service to support high-definition voice technology. Compared to conventional telephones, Ooma HD Voice doubles the audio frequencies transmitted to deliver richer, more natural sounding conversation to calls between Ooma customers. Compatible corded telephone or Ooma Telo Handset is required to support Ooma HD Voice.

iPhone and iPod Touch Calling Application

Ooma customers will be able to download an Ooma iPhone or iPod Touch application to make phone calls over any Wi-Fi network using an iPhone or iPod touch. Ooma’s app allows customers to take their Ooma service on the road with them to make or receive calls from around the world at Ooma’s low-cost international rates.

Bluetooth Support

The addition of Bluetooth support on the Ooma Telo allows users to integrate their mobile phone with their home phone systems, delivering superior flexibility and convenience. Bluetooth support on the Ooma Telo allows customers to pair compatible, Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones enabling inbound calls from the mobile phone to be answered on any home phone connected to the Ooma Telo. Users may also pair compatible Bluetooth headsets to the Ooma Telo to enable hands-free talking from anywhere in the home. Additionally, Bluetooth support will allow users to download their phone book from their mobile devices for use on the Ooma Telo Handset and online at My Ooma.

Google Voice Extensions

Ooma simplifies the Google Voice user experience, enabling consumers to take advantage of the complementary capabilities found in both offerings, for a truly integrated and seamless phone experience. Google Voice users can integrate the Call Presentation, Listen In, and caller-ID features with their Ooma system as well as access Google Voice voicemail at a touch of a button.

Voicemail Transcription

Ooma customers can have inbound voicemail transcribed into text and sent as an email or text message. Users can now enjoy the convenience of reading their voicemail quickly and silently whether they are at home or on the road. Ooma voicemail transcription is human-aided to ensure the delivery of accurate and reliable messages.

Availability

The Ooma Telo and Ooma Telo Handset are available at Ooma authorized resellers including: Best Buy, Datavision, Fry’s Electronics, J&R, Micro Center, and leading online destinations including Amazon, BestBuy.com, Buy.com, Costco.com, Dell.com, JandR.com, NewEgg.com, OfficeDepot.com, PC Mall, Provantage, Shop Harmony, Staples.com, Sears.com, K-Mart.com, Tiger Direct, RCS, Nebraska Furniture Mart, B&H Photo and Walmart.com. All features will be available to Ooma Telo customers in the first half of 2010.

Pricing

Ooma Telo retails for $249.99. Ooma Telo Handset retails for $49.99. Ooma Premier, an optional bundle of enhanced calling features costs $9.99/month. Sign up for one-year of Ooma Premier and receive a free Ooma Telo Handset or a free number transfer (a $39.99 value).

Ooma Telo is here, let the free* calls begin

Matt Burns — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:15:22 +0000

Ooma might be onto something here. The VoIP provider is taking a different path with the Telo system: the phone calls are free. Like, you don’t ever have to pay for calling your Mom. You can either use your own phones or the Ooma high-end DECT 6.0 handset. Sounds nice, eh? Too bad there’s a huge admission price for the hardware.

The Ooma Telo base station costs $249. That gets you the unlimited calling, caller ID, a new phone number, and access to online call logs. If you want to port your existing number, that costs another $40. The Ooma handset is another $50 too. But wait, there’s more.

Ooma is banking that at least some buyers will opt for the $10 per month Ooma Premier Service that adds on a few extra features. You get one-touch access to voicemail, call screening, remote access to messages, 3-way calling, free 2nd number, backup number, personal blacklist, call forwarding. The Telo comes with a three month trial of the Premier Service, btw.

But when you start to look at the numbers, it makes sense. Vonage is about the only direct competitor to the Ooma anymore (MagicJack doesn’t count, sorry) and it’s least expensive unlimited plan is $25. Let’s say you port your number to Ooma for $40, but don’t buy the branded handset. You only owe Ooma $290 total, where you’re out $25 every month to Vonage and so it only takes you 12 months to recoup your costs with Ooma. Sure, the Vonage system does have more premium features included and now lets you call more than 60 countries with for no additional charge, but there is a one-year agreement that covers the free hardware.

The high price might turn some off to Ooma Telo at first, but my goodness, the numbers don’t lie. It makes sense. The base station should be available at all major electronic outlets now (or real soon) with the handset launching in November.

Ooma Gets $14 Million, Survival Looks Like A Real Possibility

Michael Arrington — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:54:05 +0000

VoIP startup Ooma has raised another $14 million in venture capital, we’ve heard from multiple sources, increasing the total amount of capital the company has raised to $56 million. This most recent round of financing was led by existing investor Worldview Technology Partners and was a restructuring that wiped out earlier investors who chose not to participate in this round.

The company was really on the ropes and down to its last few dollars, says one source. But sales, particularly at Best Buy, are brisk and the company should reach profitability with this new round of financing, he added.

Ooma first launched two years ago as a new type of consumer VoIP product. But a complicated business model (expensive hardware, free service) made it confusing for consumers to compare to competitive offerings from Vonage and others.

But customer reviews were very positive, and the company brought in seasoned sales executive Rich Buchanan, previously at Sling Media. Best Buy started selling the devices and have been very successful in moving them off the shelves.

The company also announced a new handset product called the Telo at CES earlier this year. It is not yet available for purchase.

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Ooma Offline: If You Wanna Be A Phone Company, You Can’t Go Dead (Redux)

Jason Kincaid — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:42:13 +0000

Exactly one year ago today, a widespread outage hit Google’s GrandCentral (recently upgraded and relaunched as Google Voice). At the time, we wrote “If you want to be a phone company, and get your users to rely on you to manage all of your incoming calls, this simply cannot happen”. A year later those words ring true as a widespread outage has hit another VoIP provider: Ooma, the device that offers users free phone service for life.

Beginning around five hours ago, Ooma users across the country began to Tweet that their service wasn’t working. Ooma technicians have been regularly posting updates to the site’s official forums, which indicates that an issue stemming from an internet outage is to blame (the company’s CMO has tweeted that “a route out of our datacenter has been severed”). Twitter users are reporting sporadic success using the service in the last few minutes, which appears to have been down entirely earlier this afternoon.

Ooma has had a somewhat checkered history, struggling for years to gain market-share as consumers largely scoffed at its high pricetag (the service may have been free for life, but the $400 price of admission to purchase the unit was simply too steep for most people). But more recently, the company has been on the rebound after lowering its price to $250 per unit and closing a third round of funding last September.

Update: CMO Rich Buchanan has left the following comment below:

It’s been a tough day. Yes we at Ooma take this VERY SERIOUSLY. It appears that one of the routes out of our datacenter (and that of several other SV companies) has been experiencing problems. We are attempting fix the problem, but the challenge is that it’s not our network leg or hardware that is the problem.

The service if fluctuating up and down as we try to establish new routes around the problem. As soon as we find a permanent fix we’ll post notices on our blog and on twitter.

Our sincere apologies to those impacted this afternoon.

Rich Buchanan
CMO
Ooma

Update 2: As of 5:15 PM PST, Ooma reports that its service is back to normal.

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Ooma looking good in this economy

John Biggs — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:40:19 +0000

Ooma – the $250 VoIP box that lets you make free calls in the US (and that lets you call the US for free from international locales, an undocumented perk to be sure) – is getting more and more popular thanks to the downturn.

With a new Chief Marketing Officer, Rich Buchanan, and a new price the system is now selling like cakes that are hot. The boxes are now sold at 1,300 stores and a new version is coming this year so we can expect great things from this little company. Great things!

Even the analysts like it!

Ross Rubin, an analyst with the NPD Group, said Ooma’s original price was prohibitive. But with the reduced price, the company has a chance to sell more boxes and make good on its larger service strategy, he said.

“Clearly the company is leading with the cost-savings argument, but if it can build up a strong enough installed base, they have an opportunity to turn it into more of a services platform,” Rubin said.

If you need cheap/free phone connectivity for mom and dad, take a look. I just started using it and I was skeptical at first but it’s working quite well.

ooma officially brings out some new hardware, calls it Telo

Peter Ha — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 06:01:37 +0000

ooma has officially unveiled their new hardware at CES for the rest of the world to see and they’ve dubbed it Telo. It’s a cordless handset to go along with their VoIP service. It features “DECT 6.0 technology, High-Definition voice, connected phonebook, mobile transfer, speaker phone, and musical ring tones.” No word on price or availability.

One Year Later: Ooma

Michael Arrington — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:27:39 +0000

Consumer VoIP startup Ooma launched nearly a year ago and offered consumers free phone service for life, all you had to do was buy the hardware for $399.

Just one problem. The sticker shock of paying $399 up front for the hardware put a lot of users off. And there weren’t many places you could actually buy the Ooma. It went on sale on their website in August 2007. When a number of key executives left the company (we grabbed Sarah Ross, their former VP Communications), some blogs said they were in big trouble.

Amazon started selling Oomas later in the year, and customer reviews are overwhelmingly positive.

A year later the company is still going. They added marketing executives Rich Buchanan to the team from Sling Media earlier this year – the guy that led the Sling marketing team to sell 100,000 units in its first six months of operations, and 500,000 units as of mid 2008. Buchanan brought Tami Bhaumik with him from Sling as well, who is now Ooma’s VP Marketing.

Ooma is also now being sold in 26 southern California Best Buy retail stores, with a nationwide rollout scheduled later this month.

The company has also tweaked their business model. They still offer the free service for a reduced price of $250, with optional additional features in a premier service add on for $13/month. The premier features include a second line, three-way calling, message screening and custom rings.

I’ve been a happy Ooma customer for a year now. I also use Vonage, and Ooma’s call quality is better and there are fewer problems in general. If I didn’t have one I’d buy one now.

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Ooma not failing, is fine, don't worry

John Biggs — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:19:13 +0000

Ooma, everyone’s favorite box that offers free phone calls and looks cool, isn’t failing, at least according to a tip by Pat Phelan of Cubic Telecom. Trying to get further info. The company, backed by Ashton Kutcher, looked like it was going under last week according to a post by Valleywag. I’ve tried the service and it works well enough. It basically offers seamless free VoIP for about $400 a pop.

Founders Fund Closes $220 Million Second Fund

Michael Arrington — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 02:13:31 +0000

San Francisco based Founders Fund launched in 2005 with a $50 million venture fund. They’ve had two liquidity events since then, and a handful of other very high profile investments (Facebook, Powerset, Ooma, Quantcast, Slide, Geni, Causes, etc.).

Today they will announce a second fund, Founders Fund II. It’s much larger – $220 million. And unlike the first fund, the money comes mostly from outside investors. The new fund will allow Founders Fund to make 15-20 new investments, including pro-rata investments in follow on rounds.

A couple of investments have been made out of the new fund, they say, but have not yet been disclosed.

Founders Fund partners have deep connections in Silicon Valley, which help with deal flow (Peter Thiel, founder and former CEO of Paypal, Ken Howery, founder and former CFO of PayPal, Luke Nosek, founder and former Vice President of PayPal and Sean Parker, founder and former CEO or President of Napster, Plaxo and Facebook). But they also approach deals differently than most other funds.

Sean Parker said today in a phone interview that a glut in venture capital, combined with reduced capital needs of most startups, has led to a shift in balance of power between entrepreneurs and VCs. Founders Fund recognizes that shift and has evolved does deals a little differently because of it. For example, they invented and promote the issuance of a special class of stock, called Series FF, which allows entrepreneurs to take money off the table much earlier in their company’s lifecycle. They also allow significantly more liberal voting rights to founder board members than many other funds. See this article in the SF Chronicle earlier this year for more on how they do business.

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Being Stupid And Litigious Is No Way To Go Through Life

Michael Arrington — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 23:18:14 +0000

In the past we’ve posted communications whenever someone has threatened to sue us. I think it’s entertaining, and it hopefully makes people think twice before firing up the legal machine with ridiculous claims. So when YouTube sent us a cease and desist letter, I posted it. And when that asshole Shannon Terry threatened to sue us out of existence, I posted that too.

Now the most ridiculous claim yet. Richard Figueroa, who claims to have the rights to this image of Ashton Kutcher, is demanding that we pay him $150,000 immediately or else he’ll sue us for $1.5 million.

Hi Michael, My name is Richard Figueroa and I am contacting you on behalf of the image you are using of Ashton Kutcher that Beth Boldt had taken. Beth is upset that your company has been using his image to generate traffic and revenue to your company without her permission.We are asking that you pay Beth $150,000,00 for the image that you have been using to generate business. If you choose not to settle this bill now we will ask for $1,500,000 in damages in loss of income form the image you have been borrowing for creating traffic to your website with here picture.if you google Beth Boldt you will get an idea of who she is in the modeling and entertainment industry.We would like to settle this quietly without the media getting involved however if you choose not to agree on these terms we will file a lawsuit against your company for copyright violation and we all know how that’s going to turn out since she’s the photographer of the image you are using.
So here is her invoice: Please make check out to Beth Boldt in the amount of ($150,000,00) send it to
[deleted contact information]
And after payment is made you may not use the image of Ashton anymore unless you want to negotiate a contract.

Thank you
Richard Figueroa
BethBoldt

Here’s the problem: we never used that image of Ashton Kutcher on any of our websites. The one image we did use (in this post) was supplied by Ooma (Kutcher is the creative director for Ooma), and Ooma says they own that image.

The problem turns out to be that if you do a search on Google (or “the Google” as Figueroa calls it), the image in question appears at the top of the results and is linked to TechCrunch. Why? Well we did some digging and it turns out that someone linked to the image in a comment to one of our posts.

I explained all of this to Figueroa on the phone but he insisted that Google bought us and that we need to remove the image from Google immediately. Sadly, Google has not acquired us, and I have no easy method for removing images from Google’s servers.

Normally I’d just let something like this drop since this guy doesn’t understand anything about copyright law or the Internet, but he has also been calling and emailing our advertisers and threatening to sue them, too (listen to the voicemail below). They are understandably concerned, and Heather and I now have to spend time today calming everyone down.

Don’t be this guy.

The voicemail below is to one of our advertisers. Listen to a second one, sent to Ooma, here.

http://www.talkcrunch.com/wp-content/plugins/podpress/player.swf

Update: Starting at comment #79 below it looks like Richard weighs in with a number of comments. In comment no. 113 he tried to post my phone number and get people to call me and complain but I just deleted it.

Update 2: Richard has been calling me this evening saying people are crank calling him and that he will take “legal activation” against everyone who calls him. I’ve removed the phone number above. Please stop calling him because he just calls me afterwards.

Update 3: So the link to TechCrunch on Google’s search results is gone and the picture now links to Yahoo Answers. Richard still isn’t happy and is demanding I link that search result to him. I’m just speechless.

Update 4: Richard apologizes.

Ooma's First (Drug Induced?) Viral Video

Michael Arrington — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 01:52:29 +0000

http://www.brightcove.tv/playerswf

New consumer VOIP service Ooma officially launched yesterday and began selling units on their website. See additional coverage from Dean Takahashi and Adweek.

They also released their first (drug induced?) viral video to promote the service, which I have embedded above. The video was conceptualized by Ashton Kutcher, the company’s creative director (hear our interview with Kutcher and CEO Andrew Frame here). Kutcher’s production company, Katalyst Films, produced it.

The company says the video is loaded with symbolism, and the meaning will become clearer over time as more videos are released in the series. Whatever it is, it’s entertaining.

Get one of the last ten free Oomas

The company gave TechCrunch readers fifty free Ooma systems in July. Today they say they’ll give us more to distribute to readers now – the last ten free Oomas. To win, leave a comment below and tell me WTF you think the video means, because I have no idea. The most creative answers win.

Hey, Maybe Vonage Isn't Dead Yet

Michael Arrington — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 12:34:17 +0000

Vonage released its second quarter financial results today (I’ve embedded the release below with the new Zoho Viewer that launched last night). And while the stock continues to slide, revenues are way up and losses are slowing. Perhaps they can avoid the fate of competitor SunRocket, which shut down last month.

The company also says that they have “substantially completed” the workaround deployment for two of the patents at issue in the company-threatening patent litigation with Verizon. And development of the workaround for the third patent at issue is completed says Chairman Jeffrey Citron. A Federal court will have to agree before the company is in the clear.

Revenues for the quarter were a record $206 million, a 43% increase from the same period last year. Net losses were $34 million, down from $74 million in Q2 2006. The company still has $344 million in cash, although $66 million of that is reserved for collateral in the patent litigation.

Some bad news, though – customer churn increased to 2.5%/month. The company says they are extending the grace period for non-payment to encourage retention…but they may be retaining the deadbeats.

I am a long time Vonage customer but will soon be switching to Ooma (which, by the way, became available for purchase this morning) and getting rid of that $25/month Vonage fee. Vonage is a lot cheaper than a normal phone line, but free is hard to compete with. Perhaps some of the new hardware Vonage is testing with some customers will help them.