Canada’s VoIP market continues to heat up

Skype may be the most widely known VoIP plat-form available to consumers, but the number of players in Canada continues to grow, now that Palo Alto, CA-based Ooma has launched its service in the Great White North (www. ooma.com/).

The launch is the third for a VoIP provider here in just a few months.

The netTALK Duo and magicJack Plus have also been released, though the latter has yet to fully hit store shelves here in Canada.

The Ooma Telo is a unit that comes at a heftier upfront cost of $229.99, but makes up for that with no real residual costs afterward. Users are only charged $3-$4 per month to cover government taxes.

The promise of these devices is that they offer phone service at a fraction of the cost of traditional vendors like Bell or Rogers, with a scope that covers all of Canada and the U.S., rather than just a local municipality.

Like Primus (www.primustel.ca/) and Vonage, (www.vonage.ca/) who have operated in Canada for some time, Ooma also offers the option to port over an existing number for a flat fee of $39.99. That fee is waived if you opt to go for the company’s Premium service at $9.99 per month.

The thing about VoIP nowadays is that the voice quality is vastly improved, the costs have come down and even overseas long distance rates are better than most conventional plans.

For a small business needing a cost-effective way to do business at the office, VoIP really can come in handy.

And Ooma’s launch is likely to heat up the category even more, particularly since there’s a battle on the smartphone side as well.

These apps can work on their own or as extensions of your subscription, so that you call long distance using your data plan instead of airtime minutes.