Ooma: HDVoice For The Thrifty Consumer
Ooma has been around for quite some time. While the core of their service offering is free domestic long distance one you’ve bought the hardware, they have also made some effort to promote improved call quality…all the way to HDVoice.
The companies end-point device, a $199 device known as “Telo”, can be inserted inline with an existing landline, making your traditional home phone both voip and analog-capable. It can also be inserted inline with your internet access. Connected in this manner it provides managed quality of service (QoS) for voip traffic on your network. This is a sensible strategy, well established in many ATA type devices.
Telo is actually Linux-based and runs an instance of Freeswitch to handle its telephony functions. That open source project has consistently moved quickly to deploy new technologies…especially new HDVoice codecs. Ooma leverages this fact in offering what they call “PureVoice.”