It does work with Multiple Headsets.

Ooma charges for 411 calls? "Directory assistance (411) calls will be charged to your prepaid calling account and cost $0.99 per call. "
And what is a Prepaid Calling account!?

And I dont like the "rates" http://www.ooma.com/legal/rates

I then checked out the "Applicable taxes and fees chart" And my monthly fee's came to $3.47 a month for Az. The $29.95 I pay for a year of service with Net Talk is all I pay no extra anything and that works out to be less then Ooma. :-) Net Talk is can be bought on their website or at walmart.

carehart wrote:It's not clear from the description (or did I miss it), but don't these kind of systems work with only one phone? Or is there a way to make it work for all phones in your house? (Is the signal somehow backfed into the whole house?)

I've not read through all the comments to see if this was addressed, but it's not listed as one of the discussion highlights at the top of the I need a lift!, and I suspect it would be a question for some less familiar with these kind of systems.

I bought one that I use in Germany to have a US number. In most cases, all you have to do is connect the phone port into the closest wall jack and it will use the house wiring to reach all the other jacks. I have 2 phones running off this setup right now. Plug and play.

Make sure the phone company wiring is disconnected at the box though before you do this.

MWPollard wrote:From what I understand, MagicJack doesn't allow porting away. Not Ooma's fault, but MagicJack's.

Re-Edit: MJ does allow ports out now: http://www.magicjacksupport.com/magicjack65676.html

I have one and we were able to take our AT&T land line into this. I think all the # needs to be is not taken or you own it.

I got one of these the last Woot. When I use it, the person at the other end sometimes thinks I am pushing buttons on the phone because they hear tones. I have it connected between the modem and router as recommended, and have calibrated it to my connection speed. I still get complaints. I am about to give up on this thing.

I have a dumb question. What's the difference between Ooma and MagicJack (other than the cost where MagicJack is $40 for the device and $20/year)

Thanks!

todaresq wrote:I was a 911 dispatcher for a decade... the calls are never answered nationally for Ooma or any other VOIPs... they base what 911 center to route the call to based on the address you use when registering it. There is no national 911 clearing house (call routing center). Rhode Island does have a statewide center, but they are a pretty small state, so it makes sense.

The closest you can get to a different entity answering a 911 call and transferring the caller elsewhere is in the very few locales that don't have 911 service yet... in those cases, a telephone company operator answers and then transfers you to the nearest large PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point). There is only maybe 1% of the nations population in that situation now.

It is important for anyone using any VOIP service to change the address to where your service is currently being used. For example, there was a 911 call for a domestic incident occurring at a residence on a military base in Europe somewhere... the dispatch center receiving the call was in Ohio. Why? Because the couple moved to a military base overseas, kept their phone service the same but did not change their address in the VOIPs 911 registry, so it remained their old location.

Also, the only difference between 911 and E911 is that Enhanced911 sends caller info along with the call to dispatchers... that is it.

Actually there is a company that handles E911 information for LEC's (yes, I work for one). There are also 3rd party E911 providers (eg: callcentric.com). These are the companies that provide the "enhanced" 911 service (ie: your name, address and phone number) otherwise it's only B911 which just routes the call to your serving PSAP. Calls are routed to the PSAP according to the rate center you're in.

Ooma makes it easy to update your 911 info. Always a good idea to test it after porting a number or changing your service. Avoid peak times and NEVER, NEVER just hang up. Just tell the dispatcher you changed LEC's and verify they have the correct address. It can (not always) take 48-72 hours for your address to update after a port.

carehart wrote:It's not clear from the description (or did I miss it), but don't these kind of systems work with only one phone? Or is there a way to make it work for all phones in your house? (Is the signal somehow backfed into the whole house?)

I've not read through all the comments to see if this was addressed, but it's not listed as one of the discussion highlights at the top of the I need a lift!, and I suspect it would be a question for some less familiar with these kind of systems.

I have a white one from early one. It came with a scout (a small box) in which i could get to my message and such. But right now the scout is not on and we have 4 headsets (phones) on the same line on the same box. The base sends the phone singal to each headset (all within range) so yes you can have many phones on one. But if the phone NEEDs a phone line then it will not work.(in that case you will need the scout i hope it was called the scout lol)

The way this product works is by Turing a internet net line (cord) as an input and then has an output which is a phone line, which you plug into your phone system. So you don't use your current land line because Ooma makes one. And yes you can take this with you when you travel and it works. (do it all the time just need internet line that you don't need to log into )

OOMA = Best purchase I have made in years! =)[I have owned it for over a year]

sulululoo wrote:anyone with experience installing the Ooma Telo on a network with a Synology NAS and-or Netgear WNDR3700 wireless router -- any issues? thanks.

The Ooma unit is a router it its own right, complete with webserver for configuration, whether or not you choose to use it as such. Ideally, you connect your Internet service to the Ooma unit and then pass service to the router. This effectively puts the Ooma device in a DMZ, accessible to both the Internet and your network while not fully being on either one.

The main reason for this arrangement is so that the unit can use QoS routing to improve call quality. It also means that it can't interfere with anything inside your network.

With this arrangement, if you're trying to access the NAS from the Internet via a static IP, that probably won't work - the Ooma device acts as a NAT router, and will assign a dynamic private IP to the devices behind it like your router, which will then normally assign its own private IPs to devices behind it. However, the Ooma unit can be configured, perhaps to cooperate with a set of public addresses.

But the arrangement is flexible. I have a router on the Internet, which then assigns private IPs to the Ooma and several computers which need priority access to the Internet. I then have a switch off the Ooma and several computers which do not need high-priority access (including a BD player and media streamers). These low-priority devices may get their bandwidth throttled during calls to keep voice quality high.

If you prefer, you can just add the Ooma unit to your network and let it run. I have never seen it interfere with anything on my network, which includes a router and a WD NAS.

Summary: You can have the arrangement as simple or as complicated as you like and as your needs require.

Bought three of these OOMA boxes last time. Set one and up and have two waiting to go. Hooked the OOMA box to my Clear 4G wireless modem indirectly through a router box. I also have Clear's VOIP service and that box connect through the router box also. Both the Clear VOIP works perfectly AND the OOMA box works perfectly. Have been running this setup for months. Now I'll commit to have the OOMA box hook up with my to-be-transferred home telephone number. Question for most people would be: does OOMA work with Clear 4G? And the answer is, ta ta, YES. I've been able to speedtest.net the Clear 4G speed: kicks in around 2MB download and about 0.50MB upload. Been watching Netflix using the Clear 4G box AND making phone calls AND web browsing. No problemo!

Lance19 wrote:I think I'm in the same boat ($11.75) but hadn't heard that
it was going up. What do you know? btw, mine has been
good enough to discontinue land line...
For those of you considering it: It's GREAT...
I got mine new from Costco (probably wouldn't have taken the
chance, from any lesser company) but I would think a
refurb would be just fine

If you're paying $11.75 a year, then that's the price they'll honor. If you were to buy now, then it would cost you $40-ish per year. You can get the actual cost through their website.

Tinypackages wrote:Not sure if I understand your comment "The ability to work either connected to a computer or standalone is nice"

Check out the "netTALK DUO vs competition"
at : http://nettalk.com/competition

That's what I was referring to. It's a point in the NetTalk unit's favor. The NetTalk can be connected to a computer by USB and share it's network connection, or it can connect to a wired network connection itself.

I have an old white Core model with the free lifetime service which I have had for a few years and I couldn't be happier with it. I have no monthly fees whatsoever with the basic service. Would I be able to upgrade my old unit with this new unit and still be able to use it with my original setup and keep my free lifetime service and not have to pay any monthly fees?

zeroelement wrote:

I have one of the White models, Works well and can save you money on your phone bill. Only Negative is that this isn't the free forever version(which i have aka no bills) and if you lose your power you often lose internet and then the phone wont work.
Overall Great product.

I have the older white Core model with the free lifetime service. I bought a used refurb system from Amazon and have had ZERO complaints with my Ooma system for the last year. I just got an email from them recently to expand my warranty for this product, not a bad investment at all and works far superior than Vonage ever did for me ( I was a 2 year customer with them as well with horrible bandwidth issues). You'll like this product and will be impressed with the full-service they give you for the initial 2 months too!

cyberpunk808 wrote:I have a dumb question. What's the difference between Ooma and MagicJack (other than the cost where MagicJack is $40 for the device and $20/year)

Thanks!

The Ooma Hub or Telo is a stand-alone device that connects to a wired (Ethernet) connection to the Internet. You then connect a phone to the Hub or Telo and get dial-tone. With the Hub, you can connect Scouts and connect another wired phone to each Scout. With the Telo, you can add wireless handsets and Bluetooth devices. Ooma units can also handle modems and faxes. At the low end, you pay for the device and service fees and taxes (starting at $3.47/mo), but you can add Premier services to this, to add things like second lines, blacklists, etc.

MagicJack is a device that connects to a computer and requires the computer be up and running at all times. If the computer shuts off, goes to sleep, or restarts, you lose your phone service. If the computer is busy, your cal quality suffers or may drop the call. You get some features like voicemail, but not as many features - whether or not this affects you depends on what features you like and use. Second lines, for instance, aren't available. It costs less to start, but may cost more over time, depending on device life and add-on features. It is also smaller and more portable, but when considering portability, remember that it needs a computer to work. And when considering cost, remember to consider electricity for the computer.

A main concern to many people is that Ooma is designed to offer service to a household. MagicJack is designed to offer service to one phone that is beside one computer.

cellistpilot wrote:I have an old white Core model with the free lifetime service which I have had for a few years and I couldn't be happier with it. I have no monthly fees whatsoever with the basic service. Would I be able to upgrade my old unit with this new unit and still be able to use it with my original setup and keep my free lifetime service and not have to pay any monthly fees?

According to Ooma, yes. You will need to contact them to transfer your existing service to the new device.

stevesds wrote:Wow, if anyone reading this has had several massive fires in their town, maybe you should keep your $240/yr landline.

For everyone else outside that nasty fire-zone, Ooma is a great money saver!

What about people that live in flood zones... can it work underwater?

RobertBruce wrote:Don't forget: In emergencies these won't work when the power is out. We've had several massive fires in town. Power was out, cell phone towers destroyed. Old fashion corded phone? worked just fine because they get power from their copper line....

That's why I'd recommend buying a UPS, aka battery backup, to power *only* this and your cable/dsl/satellite/whatever modem. ("Only" because if you put your PC on it too, and it happens to be powered on when the power goes out, you won't have near as much juice left over for your phone service.)

MWPollard wrote:According to Ooma, yes. You will need to contact them to transfer your existing service to the new device.

Yea! One more question. Will the sound quality be any better with this new device than it is with my old one?

haveabigjohnson wrote:It's your internet connection speed, not your computer most likely that's causing the issues. VoIP takes up a lot of bandwidth along with the Netflix running.

I don't think so -- I average 16.5/Mbps download and 0.5/Mbps upload.

RobertBruce wrote:Don't forget: In emergencies these won't work when the power is out. We've had several massive fires in town. Power was out, cell phone towers destroyed. Old fashion corded phone? worked just fine because they get power from their copper line....

battery backup. My cable/internet provider installs a battery backup whenever they install voip phone service. Don't see any reason that a regular $25 uninterpretable power supply wouldn't work fine for ooma.

Or just see a counselor about your pyromaniac tendencies

givemethedeal wrote:GO Vonage, better deal

Tell me, how is $25/month for one line a better deal than $200+4/month? Ooma pays for itself in 10 months.

If you want to add a second line (Premier for $120/year), it will take longer to recover, but it still will. After the first year, the cost comparison is $160/Ooma Premier vs $300/Vonage, but with Ooma offering far more features.

cellistpilot wrote:Yea! One more question. Will the sound quality be any better with this new device than it is with my old one?

Between you and regular phone callers, probably only a little - because Ooma Hub already has most of the quality of a normal phone call, as opposed to its competitors that often have poor sound. It will probably be about the difference between going from a quality cordless phone to a wired phone; you probably won't notice much. But if you call others with a Telo, you will notice a huge improvement.

No one has mentioned the PureVoice vs HD Voice options. Quality matters to me.

"Ooma HD Voice doubles the audio frequencies transmitted to deliver a richer, more natural sounding conversation to calls between Ooma Telo customers (an Ooma Telo Handset or HD compatible telephone is required to support Ooma HD Voice)"

What's HD compatible? Or is this limited to Ooma to Ooma calls?

I use Panasonic phones with DECT 6.0, a base with 5 remotes.

MWPollard wrote:The Ooma Hub or Telo is a stand-alone device that connects to a wired (Ethernet) connection to the Internet. You then connect a phone to the Hub or Telo and get dial-tone. With the Hub, you can connect Scouts and connect another wired phone to each Scout. With the Telo, you can add wireless handsets and Bluetooth devices. Ooma units can also handle modems and faxes. At the low end, you pay for the device and service fees and taxes (starting at $3.47/mo), but you can add Premier services to this, to add things like second lines, blacklists, etc.

MagicJack is a device that connects to a computer and requires the computer be up and running at all times. If the computer shuts off, goes to sleep, or restarts, you lose your phone service. If the computer is busy, your cal quality suffers or may drop the call. You get some features like voicemail, but not as many features - whether or not this affects you depends on what features you like and use. Second lines, for instance, aren't available. It costs less to start, but may cost more over time, depending on device life and add-on features. It is also smaller and more portable, but when considering portability, remember that it needs a computer to work. And when considering cost, remember to consider electricity for the computer.

A main concern to many people is that Ooma is designed to offer service to a household. MagicJack is designed to offer service to one phone that is beside one computer.

We've been using MJ for over a year now and while I won't disagree with the call quality issues when the MJ PC is also handling other tasks, it works great when the host PC is not being used by someone.

MJ also has MORE free features than Ooma -- our MJ voicemail automatically emails both my wife and I a .wav file of the VM. If the MJ host PC is off, callers go straight to VM and we get the emails. No extra $10/mth charge for this. Frankly, I think it's garbage that Ooma doesn't include email access to VM in its basic plan. If we get the Telo, we'll just set the Telo to pick up some time after the 4th ring so that our stand alone answering machine can pick up messages rather than letting them roll to VM.

Also, we have the phone line running out the MJ into the wall jack and we feed ALL of the phone jacks in our house with the MJ - both corded and cordless throughout the house. Can the Telo do this? I had assumed so until an earlier post suggested that the Ooma Scout might be required. If so, I'm not interested. I'm considering making the switch to the Telo but not if I can't go out the Telo with a phone line into my wall jack (as I have with the MJ) to feed the rest of the house.

Wikipedia has some good info.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ooma

Anyone wondering about the difference b/t the Telo and the Hub, here you go http://www.ooma.com/products/ooma-telo/compare

kcmark wrote:We've been using MJ for over a year now and while I won't disagree with the call quality issues when the MJ PC is also handling other tasks, it works great when the host PC is not being used by someone.

MJ also has MORE free features than Ooma -- our MJ voicemail automatically emails both my wife and I a .wav file of the VM. If the MJ host PC is off, callers go straight to VM and we get the emails. No extra $10/mth charge for this. Frankly, I think it's garbage that Ooma doesn't include email access to VM in its basic plan. If we get the Telo, we'll just set the Telo to pick up some time after the 4th ring so that our stand alone answering machine can pick up messages rather than letting them roll to VM.

Also, we have the phone line running out the MJ into the wall jack and we feed ALL of the phone jacks in our house with the MJ - both corded and cordless throughout the house. Can the Telo do this? I had assumed so until an earlier post suggested that the Ooma Scout might be required. If so, I'm not interested. I'm considering making the switch to the Telo but not if I can't go out the Telo with a phone line into my wall jack (as I have with the MJ) to feed the rest of the house.

I get emails with my voicemails, though (based on the comparison sheet) I must have been grandfathered in on that. But most of my voicemail comes through Google Voice (forwarded to Ooma) anyway, and that has both email notifications and transcription free.

Yes, you can connect the Phone jack from the Ooma to your wall to give dial-tone throughout the house, if you have the telco service disconnected. I didn't know that would work with MJ - it requires more power on the phone line to make multiple phones ring than most devices provide.

As an aside and for clarification, the Scout doesn't work with the Telo, just with the Hub. The Scouts allow the addition of additional phones without needing to "backfeed" the signal and while keeping a fallback phone service in place; it uses a variation of powerline networking to send the data over the phone line without disrupting either phone or DSL use. It also allows pushbutton access to voicemail from areas other than the Hub. The Telo does this with the custom handsets instead, which cost about the same as Scouts.

gbinman wrote:No one has mentioned the PureVoice vs HD Voice options. Quality matters to me.

"Ooma HD Voice doubles the audio frequencies transmitted to deliver a richer, more natural sounding conversation to calls between Ooma Telo customers (an Ooma Telo Handset or HD compatible telephone is required to support Ooma HD Voice)"

What's HD compatible? Or is this limited to Ooma to Ooma calls?

Unless it has recently changed the HD Voice was a Ooma Telo to Ooma Telo option.

My 2 cents - I've had Ooma for 16 months and couldn't be happier. I haven't paid a dime since that point and am grand-fathered in at $0 tax rate. However, I skipped the lifetime service option at the time becasue I wondered the life span of the company. $350 was a lot to spend to hope I got more than 3 years of service. Just figured I would buy another unit if I wanted a second line.

Another note - I have the option from Ooma (at this point) to upgrade from my Core system - if I upgrade to premium ($9.99/month ) service and get a Telo package with a free handset, free cell phone bluetooth adapater and my current rate structure for $199.

I really don't know if there are enough benefits to moving to the Telo unless my Core system gives up. Ooma has always said I can replace the Core/Hub system with another and transfer my setting if it should die too.

Anyone Using two Ooma systems together? Is it possible and if so, how do you make it work?

gbinman wrote:No one has mentioned the PureVoice vs HD Voice options. Quality matters to me.

"Ooma HD Voice doubles the audio frequencies transmitted to deliver a richer, more natural sounding conversation to calls between Ooma Telo customers (an Ooma Telo Handset or HD compatible telephone is required to support Ooma HD Voice)"

What's HD compatible? Or is this limited to Ooma to Ooma calls?

I use Panasonic phones with DECT 6.0, a base with 5 remotes.

Yes, this is limited to Ooma Telo to Ooma Telo calls, because standard phone lines can't carry HD sound. Because of this, there are few "HD compatible telephones" out there - they rely on some other system to transfer the sound, like a business phone switch that itself uses commercial-grade VoIP.

Telephone sound is often clipped to 5khz frequency (out of the 20khz humans can hear) and 8kb data rate by the telco. Some telco's use 64kb data rates, still, that's compared to 1411.2kb for CDs or a "low-quality" MP3 at 128kb.

I really enjoy the iPod/iPhone app with the new iPod 4 it will work
Like a phone on wifi. I will be out of the country for a few days and will
See how this works when out of the country. Hopefully I will be able
To make calls from a wifi hotspot. It is only 1.9 cents a minute. So far
In the us it works well. It also works on the iPhone using 3G (and wifi). Out of the country I would never roam for data as that is a fortune. Anxious
To see the app work in the Bahamas. I will only be there a few dAys
And will not be bringing my ooma box bc it is not portable like the iPod/iphone

How does the system handle 2 lines? Do I have to purchase a seperate unit for each #?

Got this last time, saving $50 a month because I was able to give my ISP's cable modem back which they charge you for as well as the digital phone. This is awesome, costs me $3.45 a month. Very cool.

In this day and age, why would anyone have a home land line @ $50+/mo. Weve been 100% cell for 6 years.

Anyone have luck using this with AT&T U-verse?

pauldb wrote:How does the system handle 2 lines? Do I have to purchase a seperate unit for each #?

The unit itself can handle two lines.

Unless configured otherwise, the attached phone will ring for both. You can configure distinctive rings if you like, and you can press ** and 1 or 2 to select which line (Caller ID) to use. If you look at the photo, there are buttons 1 and 2 on the unit - you can press them to make one line or the other active. The optional cordless handsets have these features too. With the handsets, you can also set which handsets will ring with which phone number, as if they were on separate lines.

scherbd wrote:Anyone have luck using this with AT&T U-verse?

Due to some weirdness with how AT&T handles TV over Internet, the Ooma unit will need some minor configuration adjustments to keep it from conflicting. The details are here: http://www.ooma.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10402

Hmm, don't know why nobody else has commented on this... but what the h.ell is with the write up on this one?

Very very strange to me, and a little brokeback-ish.

Maybe it's just me, and the time, but it creeped me out.

Not to mention my name is Tim, maybe that had something to do with it.

Anyways, carry on about the product now...