eperry1 wrote:Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I did not see the answer anywhere.

Is it WIFI or do u need a direct lan connection?

direct lan .. not wifi

Can you keep your original home phone number with this? Plus you can kiss the phone company good bye? You just need an internet connection?

dextermeth wrote:I dunno if we can message each other with these forums, but I have this same Ooma from the last woot and cannot use it because of our alarm system. It's still sealed in the original woot packaging.

Just let me know and I'll sell it for a lot cheaper, $75 shipped.

If this post is breaking the rules I'm sorry!

Sell it on ebay. They are going for over $200.

stevenlee212 wrote:This may be a off-beat question , but why would anyone really need a home telephone if everyone in the household has a cell phone ?? The only calls i get at home are from people just trying to sell me great deals etc.....

If you power goes out a lot where you live, then you really want a landline. Landlines are MUCH more reliable. I recently switched my land line over to the cable company and in three months my phone has died at leat 3 times, that I know of. The cable companie's idea of reliable is much different than my idea of reliable.

agemineye wrote:Did you use the Ooma 180 days warranty and get it replaced?

I got one of the refurbs from Woot, too. Mine was also broken out of the box. I contacted Ooma and had a *BRAND NEW ONE* within a couple of days. This one is great--easy to set up, great call quality, absolutely no complaints. So, although I did have to wait another 2-3 days to get a different Ooma, I ended up paying refurb prices and ended up with a brand spanking new one. By the way, customer service was easy to deal with.

I was skeptical about this deal, but 1 1/2 years in, I can't believe how great it is! If you are on the fence, get off and buy one now!

I bought one of these 6 months ago at full retail ~$200.00. It's worked really well for us. NO phone bills for a land line any more (but you do need a high speed internet connection). I've had no problem with sound quality or dropped calls. Highly recommended.

Ooma and Faxing:

https://ooma.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/135/kw/fax/session/L3RpbWUvMTMxMzE2MjMzNC9zaWQvdS1CbzVtQms%3D



Ooma and alaarm systems:

https://ooma.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/88

BUT... Most alarm systems are setup to interrupt and take over the phone line when an alarm goes off and it needs to call the Central Monitoring Station to report it. If you're comfortable doing a bit of wiring, you can still setup the system to keep that functionality. You'd basically have to setup so extra phone wire in your house so that you can plug the alarm system into the Ooma, and then all of your phones into the alarm system. Different systems do this wiring in different ways, but in a nutshell all the alarm box does is cut the phones off from the phone line, and then the alarm picks up the phone line and makes a call out.

Alternately, you could just connect the alarm system to the Ooma hardware just like any other phone in your house. IF the phone was in use when an alarm went off and the alarm system tried to call the monitoring company you'd have a problem since the phone was in use. If the phone isn't in use, the alarm system won't have an issue. That's why many alarm panels route the home phone line through the alarm panel; if an alarm goes, the panel takes the phone line, 'hangs up' any phones that might be off-hook (by disconnecting them from the phone line) and then it calls home.

If you do this, I would recommend putting the alarm panel between the Ooma hardware and the rest of your phones to maintain this capability. Also, most alarm system panels are setup to answer the phone if it rings a certain way. I know that ADT systems for example will answer the phone if you call your number (from a cell phone or something), hang up on the first ring and call back again immeadiately. The alarm panel will answer the phone with a modem/fax machine style tone. This is so the alarm company can connect into your system and make changes, updates, etc.

If your not comfortable doing that, then the alternative would be a second land line from the local phone company with extremely basic service (read: cheap, no extras) that services only the alarm system.

stevenlee212 wrote:This may be a off-beat question , but why would anyone really need a home telephone if everyone in the household has a cell phone ?? The only calls i get at home are from people just trying to sell me great deals etc.....

My cell phone bill was ~43 per month for the lowest number of minutes and a cheap texting package, no i'net, with a 20% discount. I make 90+% of my calls from home- why pay $43 per month when I can pay $10 (taxes on Ooma and prepaid cell)?

ETA: The only issue I've had with the Ooma is that one of the cats stepped on it and turned on the "Do Not Disturb" function. Once I figured out that there was a DND function, and that light was on, it was fine.

Also, it might vary by area, but we did get the "bundle" price for DSL because Tom's cell phone is through ATT- it's certainly worth asking about, if your cell phone and DSL provider are the same.

Question: I have a small satellite office that needs long distance calling and faxing capabilities. I share ATT DSL with another tenant. Can I hook Ooma up at my desk and utilize the DSL connection to a) send and receive faxes b) utilize the woot V-Tech dect 6.0 cordless Bluetooth phone/answering system
c0 at the same time allowing the rest of the office too use the DSL normally?

OR does this need to be set up where the DSL connection comes into the office and if so, would that interfere with the other tenants use of his internet?

Sorry if this was answered before, I read the first 2 pages of posts but need to get ready for work

I have this, bought new from Amazon (I find woot refurbs dubious). I have heard from second hand/refurb buyers that they had to pay some extra reactivation (or something) fee, making the total cost comparable to just getting a new one.

I've had my (new) one for a couple of months now, and my experience is that it works just fine, probably as good as the BellSouth land line I previously had. Calling to Brazil entails an extra charge, but it's quite cheap compared to any other calling plans I'd seen.

As for reliability, of course you are at the whims of your internet provider - if they're down, your Ooma is down, that's just how it is and how it is with every similar VOIP service. But here's what happened when I was having a new electrical panel installed... my cell phone rang and it was a call for my wife. I was like "I LOOOOOOOVE PONIES? How did she get my number?" Then I realized - Ooma lets you set up an alternative number for when your Ooma is down, so I had used my cellphone number.

Interestingly, that means that one of the ways I wouldn't miss calls when travelling is to just turn off my Ooma unit.

I haven't explored all the options I have... I do have the premium service for call blocking. My ported number was on the national do not call list, but the Ooma supplied number was not. I will probably cancel when the Ooma number stops being used by the "legitimate spammers" (I know, oxymoron). I have not explored any of the other features... I let my answering machine answer instead of using Ooma voice mail, and I haven't explored Google voice integration (although I use it on my cellphone).

The only problem I encountered was with using my fax machine. Ooma FAQs answered my questions and got me going, so that works fine now.

It's a great device, but I don't know that I'd pay this much for a refurb when I've heard complaints of an extra start up fee anyway.

Anybody using this to call India ???
I can see that they have plans for 10$ for 1000 min per month
but some people have been saying 4$ per month. Are they paying for dialing international also?

sweethavenfarm wrote:what type of internet connection is required ?
(I understand high speed) But, I mean cable or
satellite? Some people get a high speed connection via a filtered/split landline.
That would make it kind of hard to drop your phone service

Any Voice over IP phone service (Ooma, Vonage, Sunfire, etc.) will suffer one problem over a satellite: Lag time in the satellite radio signal.

Yes satellite can be high speed for data, but picture this: You'r on your computer typing an email, you hit send, the computer sends it's data to your satellite equipment at wire-speed. That equipment sends the data to the satellite in orbit above the Earth, which is about a 2-4 second delay on average, then that satellite resends that signal back to Earth at the downlink station (adding another delay) and out to the Internet. Then double all that for the response back to your computer from the Internet as the data has get sent up to the satellite and then back to your house on the return trip.

This should introduce a number of seconds of delay into the transmission and response, but in reality it typically only adds a couple seconds. Most online computer gamers complain about the lag introduced by satellite internet connections, but for voice the delay should be less noticable (but still present).

Also, can this be used with all the unused Vonage 5.8ghz handsets I have? probably not as they match with a Vonage base that says ONLY for Vonage system, just wondering if one VOIP matches another..

tracydr wrote:Question?

Why are some of you people (not you necessarily!) on the OOMA thread trying to "sell" obi? If you have something to say about OOMA...then say it, otherwise stop trying to "sell" another product!!

It's always smart to compare to a competing product. Not doing that would be 100% stupid.

Overall I really like my Ooma Telo. I pay $3.17/month for phone service! At that price, I'm willing to overlook a lot of annoyances, but there have not been many to overlook.
Faxing is flaky, as others have pointed out. Also, watch out for them "forgetting" to cancel premier when you opt out. I had to call in and get them to shut it down and refund money. But they were cool about it.
Lastly, I had some issues with my Verizon router. Ooma wants to be in front of the router for QoS reasons, but with that config, my wired devices were on a different subnet than my wireless because I had 2 DHCP servers in the mix. So I put the ooma behind the router and just set the router QoS to prioritize traffic from the Telo.
Device paid for itself in 2 mths.

dc4all wrote:Question: I have a small satellite office that needs long distance calling and faxing capabilities.
...

Quality will likely suffer if you're using a lot of bandwidth with other devices unless this is the first thing off the DSL modem... the way they recommend setting it up is:

Modem --> Oooma --> Router.

I have a Panasonic DECT 6.0, so only need the one unit plugged in and three extra handsets work wirelessly.

That way Ooma gets to reserve the bandwidth it needs while limiting traffic from the router, preserving voice quality while it's being used.

Faxes would suffer even more. Even with the recommended setup, there are extra steps I had to take to get the fax to work (although it was right there in their FAQs and worked just fine for me).

dc4all wrote:Question: I have a small satellite office that needs long distance calling and faxing capabilities. I share ATT DSL with another tenant. Can I hook Ooma up at my desk and utilize the DSL connection to a) send and receive faxes b) utilize the woot V-Tech dect 6.0 cordless Bluetooth phone/answering system
c0 at the same time allowing the rest of the office too use the DSL normally?

OR does this need to be set up where the DSL connection comes into the office and if so, would that interfere with the other tenants use of his internet?

Sorry if this was answered before, I read the first 2 pages of posts but need to get ready for work

The Ooma hardware would connect to your DSL just like any other computer would (use a network hub or switch if you need extra ports to plug into) and shouldn't slow down anything by much if at all (depends on your DSL speeds really). Most VoIP services use 30Kbps to 90Kbps of bandwidth, and most DSL and Cable internet systems run at 1Mbps or higher (usually quite higher).

This is exactly how I have mine setup:

cable modem -> security server -> network switch -> Ooma

from network switch -> Wifi access point -> wifi laptops
from network switch -> wired desktop computers

I don't have my Ooma hardware sitting inbetween the Internet and the rest of my stuff because I didn't want to. This is completely supported configuration, and it is listed in the setup documentation (and the Ooma website at www.ooma.com) and is supported. I've had ZERO issues with calls in or out even while heavily using my network and Internet connection. The bandwidth needed for a voice call is small compared to streaming video, downloads and online gaming. I did have to go into the firewall of my security server and open a couple network ports for Ooma. Actually I didn't need to as it worked out of the box, but I did it anyway.

See my repvious post about faxing (which this'll do just fine).

buzzwang wrote:
Ooma and alaarm systems:
....
If your not comfortable doing that, then the alternative would be a second land line from the local phone company with extremely basic service (read: cheap, no extras) that services only the alarm system.

Another better solution is to look into Alarm companies that also have "Cellular" connectivity for their monitoring. Of the handful of larger alarm companies in my area (mid-west) all but 1 offer this. And only 1 of those that do charge more, the rest are no cost difference, or even less than adding a 2nd phone line.

killingeyes wrote:Anybody using this to call India ???
I can see that they have plans for 10$ for 1000 min per month
but some people have been saying 4$ per month. Are they paying for dialing international also?

Domestic is free (but $4, usually less, for taxes). International has very competitive rates. I prepaid $10 for calling Brazil, it works just fine.

If you want the bulk rates to India, you need to pay for premiere service + the bulk plan. See here: http://www.ooma.com/premier/international-bundle

rocque wrote:Can you keep your original home phone number with this? Plus you can kiss the phone company good bye? You just need an internet connection?

You can port it over for about $40 through Ooma if you want to keep your original number. And yes you just need broadband internet and can get rid of your phone company.

susanlahaie wrote:Is there any way to disable the "call waiting" feature? I just can't stand "call waiting"

Good question. I thought there would be an easy answer but when I logged into "My Ooma" account, I could not find the answer. I read the support info on call waiting, but it just told you how to use it, did not mention if it could be disabled. I even searched the forums (I too hate call waiting).

Anyone know the answer?

traceywashere wrote:direct lan .. not wifi

Well... yeah, technically.

But, with this:
https://www3.tivo.com/buytivo/tivo-accessories/networking/items/moreimgs_AN0100_ajaxpopup.html

OR this:
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=663

You can bridge any wired ethernet device to a wireless router or access point including Ooma. I say this with complete confidence because, until just last Tuesday afternoon, I was using the Tivo wifi-n adapter and then Tuesday was when my D-Link bridge unit showed up and I switched it out for the bridge instead. Ooma worked just fine on both at Wireless-N speeds (sharing that connection my Tivo and a computer). I switched to the D-Link bridge because the Tivo wireless adapter wasn't happy servicing more than one device at a time because the wireless connection would start to drop out if the Tivo or the computer wanted to use the network. This was a problem with the Tivo wifi device, not the Ooma hardware. I was trying to make the Tivo thing do something it wasn't supposed to be able to do.

I bought one at Costco about a year ago. It worked fine for about 5 weeks and then stopped. I'm a techie and couldn't get it to work. Spent 3 weeks with tech support and 7-10 calls and call backs, even work with the highest support people. Always a run around, always wanted you to do the same tests and verifications over and over. They just needed to send me a unit that worked, but would never admit the base unit was broken. Luckily Costco has a very good return policy and took it back no questions asked. It worked great when it worked, but when broke it caused me HELL. Beware of tech support.

escalante wrote:Disable Call Waiting?

Good question. I thought there would be an easy answer but when I logged into "My Ooma" account, I could not find the answer. I read the support info on call waiting, but it just told you how to use it, did not mention if it could be disabled. I even searched the forums (I too hate call waiting).

Anyone know the answer?

I don't recall teh exact command, but there is a generic *70 number or something you can dial on each outgoing call to disable call waiting for the duration of that call.

Also, there is this:
https://ooma.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/214/kw/disable%20call%20waiting/related/1

Basically, if you're near the Telo (or Hub or Scout) when a second call comes in, you can send it to voicemail with a button press.

But, there is hope on the horizon. See here:
http://www.ooma.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=556

Klever wrote:Will this work with my current alarm system that uses my landline to communicate with the monitoring center?

I was wondering the same thing...

I had switched my phone over to VoIP from AT&T U-verse and managed to get it working. What I had to do was make sure that the Alarm system phone wire is wired in to the main line of the house, by splicing the 2-wires (red/green) with the phone line( might require the phone company to do it if you don't know how) then I took the regular phone wire from my Uverse and plugged it into the wall...and the whole house, including the alarm is on my Voip.

I figure, if Ooma is another device off your router, then you can plug the phone line from it into your wall and everything will work fine.

Am I correct?

I have the Ooma Hub and will probably never upgrade to the Telo because the Hub works with the Scouts. We have a larger house and having the Scouts is a necessity. For those who aren't familiar with the Ooma systems, Scouts are extenders that allow you to connect more phones to your Ooma Hub. The Hub is the original Ooma system and the Telo is like the 2nd generation. The Telo doesn't work with Scouts, so you can only have a few phones connected to Ooma. With the Hub, you can have many more (I'm not sure about the limits) phones on Ooma. I have about 10 phones in my house all connected to Ooma through the Hub and multiple Scouts.

Sarisin wrote:I was fortunate to get in early buying an OOMA Hub (never used the Scout) about three years ago. I don't have to pay the taxes. Also, they had a promotion where you could buy the Premiere Service lifetime for about $100. So mine is free and it has worked great for me.

Two concerns though:

1. I have no landline and am using a Verizon dry loop line. They tell me I can only get their slowest DSL service. FIOS not available in my condo, so I miss a faster internet connection with the dry loop.

2. I have been told the OOMA might not work with 911 services. Thankfully, I have never had to test it out, but it would be nice to know it will work if you need it. Anyone every try 911 with an OOMA?

I don't know how slow the slowest DSL service is on Verizon and you never specified the speed that you're currently getting, but you can use my speeds as an example. I get about 5 MB/S downloading at home, which would be your incoming sound on Ooma. The call quality is excellent. I also have the Ooma app for iPhone. My iPhone gets 2 MB/S downloading. The sound quality on my iPhone using the Ooma app is alright. I can understand everything that's coming through. My upload speed at home is about 0.9 MB/S. At this speed, my voice seems to be coming through clearly on the other end. The same goes for my slower iPhone speed, which gets about 0.4 MB/S up. Therefore, I wouldn't freak out about the slow internet speed.

Ooma has added 911 support. You can configure 911 settings in your Ooma account. The downside to using 911 on Ooma versus a landline is that if your power goes out, there's no Ooma but the landline will stay active. Some people keep their landline and plug it into the Ooma box so that the box will resort to the landline if it ever looses power. At my house, we thankfully never had to call 911, but we would use the cell phones for 911 if we needed to in a power outage. Otherwise, 911 should work fine on Ooma.

recruiterga wrote:I was wondering the same thing...

I had switched my phone over to VoIP from AT&T U-verse and managed to get it working. What I had to do was make sure that the Alarm system phone wire is wired in to the main line of the house, by splicing the 2-wires (red/green) with the phone line( might require the phone company to do it if you don't know how) then I took the regular phone wire from my Uverse and plugged it into the wall...and the whole house, including the alarm is on my Voip.

I figure, if Ooma is another device off your router, then you can plug the phone line from it into your wall and everything will work fine.

Am I correct?

Yep, that's one way to do it.

recruiterga wrote:I was wondering the same thing...

I had switched my phone over to VoIP from AT&T U-verse and managed to get it working. What I had to do was make sure that the Alarm system phone wire is wired in to the main line of the house, by splicing the 2-wires (red/green) with the phone line( might require the phone company to do it if you don't know how) then I took the regular phone wire from my Uverse and plugged it into the wall...and the whole house, including the alarm is on my Voip.

I figure, if Ooma is another device off your router, then you can plug the phone line from it into your wall and everything will work fine.

Am I correct?

No, Ooma will not work with alarm systems. This is because Ooma does not use the wall phone line. It connects to the internet via Ethernet and connects to phones via a direct connection from the phone to the Ooma system or Ooma Scout. If you completely revert to Ooma and ditch your landline, wall phone lines will be dead.

jlindley3 wrote:I bought one of these 6 months ago at full retail ~$200.00. It's worked really well for us. NO phone bills for a land line any more (but you do need a high speed internet connection). I've had no problem with sound quality or dropped calls. Highly recommended.

Costco is selling them for over 200 new. I had been on the fence until I saw it on woot... Glad to hear the refurb deal is reputable

mike08b wrote:...
Ooma has added 911 support. You can configure 911 settings in your Ooma account. The downside to using 911 on Ooma versus a landline is that if your power goes out, there's no Ooma but the landline will stay active. Some people keep their landline and plug it into the Ooma box so that the box will resort to the landline if it ever looses power. At my house, we thankfully never had to call 911, but we would use the cell phones for 911 if we needed to in a power outage. Otherwise, 911 should work fine on Ooma.

Ooma has Enhanced 911 service just like what's on a cell phone, and it works fine (I've used it).

mike08b wrote:No, Ooma will not work with alarm systems. This is because Ooma does not use the wall phone line. It connects to the internet via Ethernet and connects to phones via a direct connection from the phone to the Ooma system or Ooma Scout. If you completely revert to Ooma and ditch your landline, wall phone lines will be dead.

Not entirely correct. When I first got Ooma, I plugged a phone cord into the Ooma box, and plugged the other end into the wall jack that the phone used to be plugged into. I disconnected the wiring for the outside phone line in my basement, so that the Ooma box was running all the phone jacks in my house instead of the phone company.

To keep my alarm system working like the alarm company expected, when I disconnected the phone company wire from my house, I connected the phone jack I plugged the Ooma Hub into in it's place. My Ooma Hub effectively became my phone company connection, and ran all the phone jacks in my house, and my alarm system was still connected inbetween my phones and the Ooma Hub, just like it used to be between my phones and the phone company before I switched to Ooma.

Is this compatible with multi-line phone systems for business?

kimlarm wrote:Is this compatible with multi-line phone systems for business?

Ooma discourages Business use, but they either are or soon will offer a business-class service similar to the residential stuff.

That being said, they also acknowledge that people are using their residential service for business use (home office and that kind of thing) and they are OK with that so long as people don't abuse it. Technically the service isn't unlimited minutes. They give you like 5000 minutes a month or something. If you go over it's not a big thing, but if you go over repeatedly every month (abusing the service) then they'll start paying attention to you.

I read this in a letter from the Ooma President that they had posted on their site a couple months ago. Basically you can use it for business, but you shouldn't. In order to get multiple lines you'd need multiple Telo's or Hub's and such, which really isn't the way to go.

For multiple line service in a business (assuming you want VoIP over anything else), take a look at 3CX or Asterisk voip phone software (Windows and Linux respectively) and then a SIP service provider. SIP is the same kinda thing that Ooma and Vonage are using, but with a serive provider you can get multiple lines and plug them into a PBX-like system.

Google for SIP providers, or just look here:
http://www.sipcenter.com/sip.nsf/html/Service+Providers

I currently have a Freedom plan from Call Centric (http://www.callcentric.com/) and I have a device similar to the Vonage adapter and a regular phone plugged into it. I bought the device off eBay and programmed it to use CallCentric myself.

I could just have easily (and almost did) setup a cheap laptop running Windows XP & 3CX (www.3cx.com) for a PBX on multiple lines, but decided to start simple so I could test it. I'm not done testing, I just put it on hold for awhile due to life changes (buying a new house, moving and such).

killingeyes wrote:Anybody using this to call India ???
I can see that they have plans for 10$ for 1000 min per month
but some people have been saying 4$ per month. Are they paying for dialing international also?

Try this to call India. 5cents per minute, toll free number. I use with my OOma, pay as you go!

http://www.startec.com/US/EN/default.jsp

zduba1 wrote:Try this to call India. 5cents per minute, toll free number. I use with my OOma, pay as you go!

http://www.startec.com/US/EN/default.jsp

Sorry, 1.9Cents per minute!

KarenMarie wrote:Just in case anyone decides to reply to me...

We have verizon cell phones.
the kids live in the UK, we in the USA.

thanks.

Skype, Ooma, and other VoIP all rely on a good internet connection. I can video skype all my friends and family with nary a hiccup. Before you invest in the hardware, make sure your internet connection isn't the weak point. We are fortunate to have Verizon FiOS in our area, so our throughput is high, clean and consistant.

Magic Jack Plus has been released.
Just through phone orders only right now.
You can ask a MagicJack Support Chat Person for the phone number.
Im not going to spam any phone numbers or web addresses here.

If you google it there is a users group that has a forum dedicated to the new MJ Plus.

[quote postid="4587062" user="klandon61"]MagicJack Plus has not been released yet, as far as I know

moxxee wrote:Does this work up with dial-up?

Do you mean dial up phones? Not sure. Never tried it. It works with all touch tone phones perfectly. I hooked up a Panasonic business system to mine, and ran my old phone line in as the second line, and turned it off.
Oh.. for a laugh? here is something silly.
for months, I received weird collection calls. Just people leaving voice messages that John XXX or Bill XXX or (anyone) better come down and pay their bill. They sometime left phone numbers, and I got into heated arguements with a few of them demanding they quit calling me (I did not port over my number).... I called ooma and they tried hard to figure out how I was getting all those threatening calls.
One day, something made me think to try the old phone company line and to my surprise it still had a dial tone. Then I called my ooma from that line and it got through. This was 3-4 months after it was officially disconnected.
Then, it finally dawned on me that all people whose phones are disconnected (for lack of money) were being forwarded to my old phone line!!!!!
it came into my panasonic business system and was picked up and answered.. and promptly filled with abusive warnings for completly unknown people. Once I disconnected it from my phone system, all the calls stopped. It never was ooma, it was pac bell punnishing me for "jumping ship"
:-)

PDubs wrote:Any other comments regarding the faxing capabilities? Would love to be able to hook up our all-in-one and be able to fax.

Have it and love it...Yes you can use it to FAX.

Thanks for the answers to my previous post. I guess my question about how AT&T would know that I'm making a call through the Ooma wasn't clear, partly because I was thinking that I'd be using the same phone for both the landline and the OOma and I'm thinking now that that is not possible. I guess I'll dedicate my existing phones to the Ooma and see how it works, then maybe port over my landline number and get rid of the local service I pay way too much for.
Would you guys recommend hooking up a cheap answering machine to the landline connection since my phone/answering machine combo will be dedicated to the Ooma line?