dpax67 wrote:Also consider the NetTalk Duo. I have that as well as the Ooma Telo. Both work great and completely as advertised. I got the NetTalk before I became aware of Ooma, and had already paid for a year's service. I'll probably keep both, since the NetTalk costs $30 per year.

Why are you keeping both? Is NetTalk insufficient?

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 you phone number over to Ooma for a one-time fee. I recall it's around $40.

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.

What you could do is sign up with ooma and then give/send them the ooma to use there. That way you just call your new ooma number and their phone rings. It only costs you a couple of bucks a month to call overseas to your "US" ooma number. Just a thought as I don't live overseas. I think all you need is a U.S. billing address.

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

Unless they have made changes in the last couple months, it probably won't work. My experience is that the "kissoff" at the end of an alarm message is lost. The alarm panel thinks the isn't complete and tries re-sending up to 16 attempts. Since the message isn't completed it isn't de-coded properly at the monitoring facility. I've tried every work-around I can think of, but most of the time it just isn't gonna work. Get a cellular dialer for your alarm, or an internet comm module.

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?

You could do that, but Ooma has answering service with the basic package. The downside is that if the Telo is located remotely, you can't see the message light. I set up a Google Voice number which relays to Ooma, and so I rely on my GV for answering service.

mpendergast wrote:Anyone know if Ooma is going to charge an activation fee?

No activation fee, but you will be billed for communication taxes each month (typically $3-5).

I've owned on for about a year. It's pretty horrible. The call quality if frequently bad. Missed calls. It take about 30 seconds to connect a call. There is frequently an echo or long delay. And there is the annoying dial tone.

How many extensions can one have through the house? I currently have 5 receivers throughout the house.

gunslingerpc wrote: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.

Were you able to keep your same number that you had on Verizon? (assuming VZ was your telco). When you ditched your Verizon phone service (again, assuming VZ was your ISP) how did that affect your service bundle?

Thanks for any info you or anyone else can offer.

kchoschton wrote:Forgive my ignorance, but the only reason I have a landline is to get DSL Internet service. Is there a way to get it without a landline? I know about Verizon and Clear, but neither are available in my area - North Georgia. I would love to hear options from Wooters.

Depends where in N. GA-I have bellsouth and TDS-you can get "bare naked DSL" with bellsouth for 37/M-highest speed and something like 32 with TDS-that's all you wou pay for phone svc with basic package!

I have two Oomas at home. Best phone solution available. Just wanted to clear up one incorrect item in the product description: The description says you can keep your land line as a backup. This used to be true, but units manufactured since the spring of 2011 no longer have a land line port. The Oooma I bought last winter had land line integration, but the refurb I bought on Woot earlier this summer was the new model without the land line port. Also, be careful if you give this as a gift -- with the Woot refurb, the instruction sheet had handwritten scribbles from the original owner.

arunlai wrote:How many extensions can one have through the house? I currently have 5 receivers throughout the house.

Since you called the handsets "receivers," I'm assuming you have a multi-handset phone system. If that's the case, nothing will change. You'll just plug that base unit of your phone system into the Ooma device instead of into the wall jack. If your phones each independently plug into a wall jack, though, life is more complex. Technically, you can wire your Ooma into your house's telephone wiring so that the wall jacks all work, but I haven't had much luck with this approach.

Well they are much better looking than the magic jack that's for sure.

See both websites side by side:

via th.isandth.at

ventures wrote:Unless they have made changes in the last couple months, it probably won't work. My experience is that the "kissoff" at the end of an alarm message is lost. The alarm panel thinks the isn't complete and tries re-sending up to 16 attempts. Since the message isn't completed it isn't de-coded properly at the monitoring facility. I've tried every work-around I can think of, but most of the time it just isn't gonna work. Get a cellular dialer for your alarm, or an internet comm module.

Ditto. I was not able to make my alarm work with Ooma. But I eventually discovered that the alarm company was very helpful when it came to finding an alternative solution, since they wanted to protect their monthly monitoring fee. They came out and wired up a radio link for $2/month. Considering the savings from dumping my land line, I'm still way ahead.

OBI110 unit works like a charm (2 months now, only phone) and its half the price.

woottoady wrote:You could do that, but Ooma has answering service with the basic package. The downside is that if the Telo is located remotely, you can't see the message light. I set up a Google Voice number which relays to Ooma, and so I rely on my GV for answering service.

My Telo box is located in the back room, but if you have a Telo handset, or a phone with a messsage (voicemail) light, they will blink when you have voicemail.

I have a two-line Nortel phone on my desk, and the message waiting light flashes whenever I have Ooma voicemail.

My only issue is that I cannot use the two-line phone for both of the Ooma lines I get with Premier. I wish that they had designed the Ooma phone jack to handle both lines in the wiring. The only way to easily access the second line is to use the Ooma Telo handset.

-MarkSly

buzzwang wrote: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.

I agree. When I switched from Verizone to my cable company for phone I did the same thing and all works well. If you need to, call your security monitoring company and they can either tell you how to do this, or even better if you are a novice, they can come to your house and do it for you. Of course you loose your security in a power failure.

Sold Out!! Glad I bought it last night! Looks like there were 1503 of these bad boys for sale!

Just missed the woot, but probably am gonna pick up a new one at BB. Question, please: if I have the portable phone where the 2nd & successive handsets just have to be plugged in to an electrical outlet (not a phone jack extension) in order to work off my main handset, will this setup work with ooma, too? TIA!

hushpuppy wrote:Just missed the woot, but probably am gonna pick up a new one at BB. Question, please: if I have the portable phone where the 2nd & successive handsets just have to be plugged in to an electrical outlet (not a phone jack extension) in order to work off my main handset, will this setup work with ooma, too? TIA!

Yep that will work.

parkloop wrote:I have two Oomas at home. Best phone solution available. Just wanted to clear up one incorrect item in the product description: The description says you can keep your land line as a backup. This used to be true, but units manufactured since the spring of 2011 no longer have a land line port. The Oooma I bought last winter had land line integration, but the refurb I bought on Woot earlier this summer was the new model without the land line port. Also, be careful if you give this as a gift -- with the Woot refurb, the instruction sheet had handwritten scribbles from the original owner.

If this is true, it would have been a deal-killer for me. Without the landline outlet on Ooma, how do you integrate your house phone jacks/wiring into the system?

It doesn't make sense for Ooma to remove this very necessary feature.

nuggy wrote:I was in the computer industry (20 years) as an engineer in the development and approval of products like magic jack (so they could be sold in our build to order systems)....Have moved on to something else now.....

I have a little experience testing "like" products.....

MAGIC JACK IS A POS!

Well it is working just fine for me. I live in the country and dropped my land line. No problems with Magic Jack as of yet.

turbobuick86 wrote: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.

funny you should say that. I just got a new modem/router and my speeds went from average 6-7mb to this:
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1425679132.png

I tested with 3 different sites and that is the norm.

Do I need to pay 79 dollar activation fee since the item is refurbished? Please somebody answer. I know for used Ooma device you have to pay activation fee $79

I know that this is sold out now, but I just wanted to throw in my two cents worth. We bought one of the refurbished Ooma Telos through Woot a few months ago, and we love it. We had Vonage prior to that, and the sound quality and consistency is so much better with Ooma. One has to pay to port one's current phone number, but Ooma still paid for itself in 6 or 7 months. I would have changed even if I hadn't saved because the sound is so much better. But especially with the low cost per month (just $3-4 in taxes and government fees) it's a super device!

sayeedwoot wrote:Do I need to pay 79 dollar activation fee since the item is refurbished? Please somebody answer. I know for used Ooma device you have to pay activation fee $79

To my knowledge you do not have to pay a $79 activation fee. I bought this exact refurbished model a few months ago on Woot and only paid a $40 fee to port my phone number. That was it.

parkloop wrote:I have two Oomas at home. Best phone solution available. Just wanted to clear up one incorrect item in the product description: The description says you can keep your land line as a backup. This used to be true, but units manufactured since the spring of 2011 no longer have a land line port. The Oooma I bought last winter had land line integration, but the refurb I bought on Woot earlier this summer was the new model without the land line port. Also, be careful if you give this as a gift -- with the Woot refurb, the instruction sheet had handwritten scribbles from the original owner.

I s'pose it's possible that woot got a batch of the older units.... Amazon's Ooma page says the same thing ($199.94 for a new unit):

"Low-Cost Landline Option for Added Flexibility
Ooma gives you the option of integrating a low-cost landline as a backup. This way, you'll be able to enjoy the assurance of traditional 911 service and seamless coverage during Internet and power outages."

I couldn't find a mention of land lines on Costco's Ooma page, which means either there is no mention of it (so it's not included) or my hunting skills aren't working today.

{shrug}

-- Ed

ThunderThighs wrote:Well, if you're bored since this sold out, you can see how many words you can make from the title:

Ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone System

Just keep editing your post to add new words though. It'll be more fun to see who has the most that way.

"My ponies hope to move to Shelah". So...what do I win? :-)

ThunderThighs wrote:Me thinks you used Google.

Nice one though.

Nope. Just a pad and a pen. The ponies reference is obvious. I don't know whether to be insulted or give myself a pat on the back for having my intellect compared to that of Google.

I got mine over 6 months ago, and the only bills were the initial setup cost, and porting my home number. Otherwise I pay for local taxes ($5 a month) and it is great!

Regarding comparisons between the ooma and obi, here are a few of my thoughts:

I have both ooma and obi and use ooma for our main home line. I have also recommended it to my friends and family. Both my parents and my in-laws have switched to ooma with (mostly) good results.

I bought the obi after the ooma was in service as our home service and haven't had enough incentive to switch. Here are some reasons:

1. I remember reading that ooma runs everything over a vpn between your unit and their server. Google might also do some encryption (I don't know), but it would be hard to beat that security provided by the vpn.

2. Obi works because their developers were able to trick google voice's servers into thinking they were communicating to a google web client. Google could change their protocol with no warning and break obi. Whether obi can correct this with a firmware update in a matter of hours or months, I have no way of knowing.

3. If you desire to keep a previous number, consider that Google only ports mobile phone numbers. If you wanted to preserve a home number, you would need to port twice, first to a mobile phone, then to the Google Voice number. Ooma will port both fixed and mobile phone numbers

4. Yes, it is possible that ooma could go out of business and just pull the plug. That's a calculated risk, but one that took just a few months to pay off.

5. Ooma's 911 service at least connects to an emergency operator, sending along with the address you enter during set up. While not perfect, I know that if a visitor to our house or babysitter picks up the phone and dials 911, help will come. There are some work-arounds with the Obi, but they seemed more brittle than the ooma solution.

6. I bought the obi more as geek project. Perhaps with more time, obi will develop the reputation as "ready for prime time", i.e. ready to go in the homes of your non-techy friends and family. At the time I got my obi, the majority of those who recommended the obi were fellow geeks. Ooma has been around a little longer.

Despite all of the above, had ooma not been available, I would likely have pushed harder to deal with the above reservations. None seem insurmountable. Maybe it is time to give obi a deeper look. But I am happy with my ooma, and suspect most woot customers would be as well.

ivanivanovich wrote:I s'pose it's possible that woot got a batch of the older units.... Amazon's Ooma page says the same thing ($199.94 for a new unit):

"Low-Cost Landline Option for Added Flexibility
Ooma gives you the option of integrating a low-cost landline as a backup. This way, you'll be able to enjoy the assurance of traditional 911 service and seamless coverage during Internet and power outages."

I couldn't find a mention of land lines on Costco's Ooma page, which means either there is no mention of it (so it's not included) or my hunting skills aren't working today.

{shrug}

-- Ed

It's not the older units that lack the land line port, it's the newer ones. From Ooma's support site: "Note: If your Telo unit was manufactured after April 2011, do not support landline integration and do not have a WALL port." Here's the URL: https://ooma.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/211/kw/land%20line/session/L3RpbWUvMTMxMzE4OTA5NC9zaWQvZExCV0puQms%3D

The all-important note regarding the April 2011 change is near the bottom of the page.

parkloop wrote:It's not the older units that lack the land line port, it's the newer ones.

Understood, thanks.

-- Ed

ahhhhh man!!!!!!! I want one and I can't get it today! Will Woot have the Ooma for sale again? If so, do anyone knows how often Woot repeat the same item?

wmack7 wrote:ahhhhh man!!!!!!! I want one and I can't get it today! Will Woot have the Ooma for sale again? If so, do anyone knows how often Woot repeat the same item?

There are no guarantees of repeats. The short term answer: 0ver 6300 sold in 4 woots since October, on top of 1500 today, my guess is probably will be back.

The long-term/future answer: You can scroll through the community section and look at the items sold chronologically, or (more effciently) search for an item in the search box and wade through for an item and how many sold (e.g., sold out, #/type comments, etc.) and take a guess if it will be sold again.

I think it was mentioned above, but just to be on the safe side, for future reference, it was $139.99 today.

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

Have u sold it yet? Pls e-mail me if you have not. thanks!

macraig wrote:^ THIS. ^

I don't know when Google will decide to "monetize" Google Voice, but for the time being I've paid nothing but the cost of the Obihai device and I get to keep using the phones I already had. I get caller ID, notification on the phones themselves of new GV voicemail, missed calls, etc.

911 support. Of course, I'm trying to solve this for my mom by dual-linking the Obihai with both Google Voice and a Callcentric account.