Okay, when I heard about Ooma (the new start-up promising unlimited domestic calls for anyone willing to buy their Ooma VoIP hardware solution) I was intrigued. I mean UNLIMITED calling? Who wouldn't want to save money on their phone bill. And when I began to see Ooma being referred to as the product that would revolutionize the phone industry in the same way as Tivo did for home video recording..well lets just say I got excited. But is Ooma all that it's cracked up to be? Well to answer that question I reached for my trusty calculator and starting punching in numbers. I'm no mathematician mind you, but I know how to add, subtract, divide, and calculate interest. And with my calculator in hand I discovered something very interesting.



To start we must first determine how much domestic long distance costs these days? It's pretty cheap. In fact using Skype and their Skype Unlimited calling plan you can make unlimited calls to any phone within the US and Canada for $29.95 a month. Ooma sells for $399. So if we are looking at the cost of long distance as $29.95 a year, how many years would it take to pay off the Ooma box that sells for $399? Answer a little over 13. Oh but wait. We forgot one more calculation. What if instead of buying that Ooma box for $399 we took that money and put it into a long term CD at 5.5% interest. In 13 years when my CD matures I would have $814(minus taxes of course and we need to subtract $29.95 a year we will be paying to Skype). Taking this into account, this Ooma box has now cost us an additional $260 or so before taxes. Which translates into another 8+ years. But to be fair, to really compete with a Ooma hardware solution we need to purchase a piece of hardware that would allow us to use our existing corded or cordless phone like Ooma does. So lets subtract the cost of D-Links Skype adapter DPH-50U which can be bought for around $60. With this we now have reduced our cost from an additional $260 to $200 which is equal to another 6+ years. But lets take a couple years out for taxes and deductions. In total..We're now talking aproximately 17 years give or take.

So what can we conclude? Well if you are willing to wait 17 years for your Ooma box to pay for itself, then it's a good deal in my book! If you don't have 17 years to waste, why not consider D-Links VoIP solution today. As we mentioned earlier, we have a skype adapter that allows you to use your existing home phone to make or receive standard or skype based calls. Skype gives you VoIP calling at an incredibly low cost. For the business owner...we've also teamed up with Microsoft on a small business phone system called VoiceCenter that is completely voice activated, easy to manage, and easy to install. But I'll share more about that another day.

Until next time... .

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