I can't believe anyone is actually taking the whole idea of Ooma seriously. The more I think about how this product reportedly works, the more I simply cannot see why anyone thinks this is even remotely a good idea. Granted, I am not immune to changing my mind. I certainly wasn't a fan of GrandCentral when it first launched, now I can't live without it!

The premise behind what they are doing is making peer-to-peer phone calls. They are essentially routing other peoples calls to your landline. There's a whole bunch of other functionality they are enabling, which I could care less about, but this peer-to-peer calling thing scares me.

What supposedly happens is you make a call and it gets routed over the Internet to someone else's phone number who can complete the call locally. Or, perhaps, someone with unlimited long distance on their phone. Of course, if you have that, I question why you'd want to waste $400 on a box that gives you free, unlimited domestic calling.

I don't care what kind of black magic these snake-oil salesman claim is going on. Ooma adds an element of human stupidity to the quality of service equation that no amount of software magic is going to solve. Routing the call over someone else's phone line makes it possible for other people to listen in on your calls. It also makes it much easier for calls to be interrupted by either an emergency (think 911) or some form of human stupidity.

Ooma, as I understand it, decreases the security and reliability of phone calls to what I consider an unacceptable level. That's all fine and dandy when it's a free community product like Jeff Pulver did with fwdOUT-which is what this whole scheme looks like-but it's quite another when you have to pay $400 for the privilege.

I know that I don't have all the fact here. If someone, either someone who has actually has the service, or someone from Ooma wants to set me straight on these things, please feel free to leave a note in the comments. As I said, I'm not unwilling to change my mind, but I can't possibly see how this will work for me in any acceptable fashion.