Description
Ooma is an American publicly traded telecommunications company based in the Silicon Valley, California area. Ooma offers communications services including Voice over IP (VoIP) calling for business, home and mobile users. In 2015, Ooma was named one of the fastest-growing private companies by Silicon Valley Business Journal.
History
Ooma was founded by Jamie Yukes in early 2003 while building a SMB VoIP company. He later pitched Andrew Frame and Shawn Fanning of "Napster" on a golf trip in San Francisco. Frame (who previously worked for Cisco Systems in 2004) quickly left Procket Networks to be Ooma's founding CEO. Ooma's initial product was a "VoIP in a box" device which used peer-to-peer VoIP technology to let users make phone calls over other Ooma users' landline services. The system worked through a "hub" which connected to the main phone line as well as "scouts" which connected to additional phones. In January 2008, Ooma terminated the use of peer-to-peer technology.
PC Magazine awarded Ooma the DigitalLife Best of Show award in the hardware innovator category for the Ooma Hub in 2007. Frame stepped down from his role as CEO in 2009 and was replaced by Eric Stang. That same year, Ooma released its Telo system, which consisted of a base system to access unlimited calling and caller ID. In 2009, Ooma was awarded an Internet Telephony product of the year award for its development of Ooma Telo and the Ooma Telo handset. That same year, Ooma was given the TMC Labs Innovation Award for the Ooma Hub and Ooma Scout. Ooma received the gold consumer product of the year award as part of the Best in Biz Awards in 2011.
In 2011, it was announced that Ooma's VoIP-In-A-Box was expanding to Canada.
Ooma unveiled its HD2 handset in November 2012. The handset includes one-touch voicemail, an intercom, and baby monitoring features. Ooma also launched Ooma Linx in 2012, which used an AC outlet to connect any phone or fax machine to the Telo base station. In December 2012, Ooma received the Internet Telephony Product of the Year award for its development of the Telo, HD2 handset and Linx. Ooma launched the HD3 handset in December 2017 and the Ooma Telo 4G system with wireless internet connectivity in January 2019.
Ooma worked with West Valley City, Utah, in June 2014 to offer free telephone service to households through a fiber network. In 2015, Ooma was named one of the fastest-growing private companies by San Francisco Business Times and Silicon Valley Business Journal. That same year, it was a gold winner of the Best of Biz Awards.
Ooma acquired security camera startup Butterfleye in December 2017, custom business communications provider Voxter in March 2018 and business communications provider Broadsmart in May 2019. On September 22, 2021, Ooma announced in an email message to its camera users that "We're sorry to inform you that the operation, maintenance and support of Ooma Butterfleye and Smart Cam security cameras will be ending. As such, the last day of operation of your camera(s) will be October 22, 2021. After this day, your camera(s) will stop working and will no longer record videos. Any videos you currently access through the Smart Cam App will become unavailable."
