In the earliest days of VoIP, one of the biggest benefits to enterprises with far-flung remote offices was that if you had a gateway deployed in a remote location, you could place an Internet call to that gateway and "hop-off" to the PSTN in that city and be charged only for a local call.

The principle is alive and well today, and a newcomer is taking that enterprise approach to the next (consumer) level. Of course it’s going about it a little differently.

Taking advantage of peer-to-peer (P2P) technology, well-heeled startup ooma, Inc. is unveiling a novel home phone service, which company officials claim will, "…transform home telephony from being service-oriented to device-oriented and deliver a new way of calling that brings significant long distance cost savings to consumers."

The similarities are such: ooma users placing long-distance calls will have their call travel over the Internet to the closest ooma unit to their call’s destination, where the call will hop on to the PSTN for delivery to any traditional phone.

The company also announced the launch of an invitation-only BETA program dubbed White Rabbit. The ooma solution is scheduled for full commercial availability by the fall.

Andrew Frame is CEO of ooma.

"I believe that consumers should have a better phone experience, one that combines convenience, innovation and cost savings," he said. "Just as consumers transformed the functionality of their television through TiVo and their music with the iPod, we expect that they will reinvent the way they use their home phone with an ooma system."

Patrick Monaghan, a senior analyst for Yankee Group (News - Alert) (News - Alert), is excited. "It is refreshing to see a product as innovative as ooma in this space — offering a unique approach to making long-distance calls from existing phones, via a peer-to-peer solution."

The solution is deployed by attaching an "ooma Hub" to an existing broadband connection. If customers want to activate an additional connection in the home, they need to deploy an "ooma Scout" unit for each additional extension.

The features are rather forward-thinking and fresh. Each ooma comes with a feature called Instant Second Line, which as its name implies, gives users access to a second line in their home, with no installation or new phones. So if one family member is on the phone, a second caller can reach another family member.

The solution also comes standard with a voicemail-like application called Broadband Answering Machine, and an "ooma dial-tone."

Users manage their settings (voice mail, call settings, etc…) through an Internet portal known as the ooma Lounge.

Ooma has ample financial backing from the likes of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, The Founder’s Fund, Worldview Partners, Draper-Richards, and WI Harper. All told, the company enjoys $27 million of venture funding. Of note is the inclusion of actor Ashton Kutcher on the company’s management team. Kutcher, well known for his MTV series Punk’d and for his marriage to actress Demi Moore is the company’s creative director.

The company’s management team and board are made up of a variety of alumni from some of th eindustry’s most innovative companies, including Cisco, Ariba, TiVo Inc., Redback Networks (News - Alert) (News - Alert), Yahoo! and Apple (News - Alert).

Participants in the company’s invitation-only White Rabbit BETA program receive a complete ooma system, which includes an ooma Hub and an ooma Scout for each additional active phone extension.

Similar to invitations to Google’s (News - Alert) (News - Alert) Gmail and Joost’s (News - Alert) Internet television offering, participants also receive three ooma "pass-along chips" to share with their friends thus tying the success of the solution to some serious viral marketing.

According to early reports, Ooma Hubs will cost $399 and ooma Scout units will carry a price tag of $39.