Ooma, a smart communications platform for businesses and consumers, introduced Ooma Connect, an alternative for small and midsized businesses that provides fixed wireless internet and business phone service to replace or back up slow or costly digital subscriber line, satellite and cable connectivity.
Ooma Connect delivers both internet connectivity and Ooma Office phone service for as little as $50 a month. The solution consists of the Ooma Connect Base Station and the Ooma LTE 460 Adapter, which provides wireless internet through a nationwide LTE Advanced network.
Beyond the benefit of escaping from slow internet, Ooma Connect can eliminate the wait for service from a local bandwidth provider when setting up a new business location. Ooma Connect can be pre-configured by Ooma or an Ooma partner so the base station and antenna only need to be plugged in at the business site, eliminating the cost and delay of professional installation.
Ooma Connect also can be combined with an existing broadband connection to provide wireless backup for phone service and internet data during outages. Small businesses in the United States will suffer more than $40 billion in lost productivity due to internet outages in 2020, according to the U.S. SMB Internet Outage Report from Independence Research, and 93 percent of the smallest businesses don’t have backup.
Ooma also is introducing a patent-pending feature called Continuous Voice with Ooma Connect. When the Ooma Connect Base Station is connected to both wired broadband and LTE Advanced through the adapter, all Ooma Office calls, both outbound and inbound, are transmitted simultaneously through both connections. If wired broadband goes down, all calls in progress continue through the LTE-Advanced network.
The Ooma Connect Base Station is designed to support future 5G wireless adapters, while the Ooma LTE 460 Adapter includes technologies, such as a 2x8 MIMO antenna, that should allow increased data speeds when cellular networks are upgraded as part of the transition to 5G.
“We aim to democratize access to advanced services through the Ooma Connect,” said Chris Burgy, VP of corporate development at Ooma. “Small and medium-sized businesses can’t afford the cost or tolerate the complexity of today’s disjointed solutions for business continuity and cloud-based phone service. Ooma is empowering all businesses with the same cutting-edge technology as large enterprises while also giving millions of businesses a long sought-after alternative to costly DSL and satellite internet access.”