I finally bit on one of these. It looks like it will pay for itself in a few months. I hope it is reliable.

I hate to be the contrarian to all of the Quality Posts, but I had nothing but problems with this device and Ooma in general.

Even with relatively reliable 10Mb down and 2Mb up speeds on my internet connection, I had very poor voice quality.

There is no way to cancel the service on their website. If you think cancelling premier will cancel the entire account, you are mistaken. No, you have to use their website for everything else support related, but to cancel your account and avoid those ~$3.50 charges you have to call them directly. Not cool.

I wanted to like Ooma and definitely love the features, but they definitely failed for me. I'm sure for most of you it might work out great. Just wanted to share my negative experience.

Bought one of these 4 years ago and haven't looked back. Follow the setup instructions exactly the way it's written or it won't work properly. I haven't paid a phone bill in 4 years. Praise the LORD!

Ooma refurbs on the Ooma site are $159.99 and come with a 30 day no questions asked return policy and a full 1 year. I just checked with the Ooma customer service dept, and today's Woot offering is covered only by the 180 days noted on the Woot writeup. Apparently, an extra 180 days of warranty costs about $20 (ignoring tax and shipping costs, of course).

So I just found out for $20 more and free shipping you can get a refurb direct from ooma with a full 1 year warranty and a 60 day return policy.... hate to say this as I love me some Woot this isn't a deal after all...

Hello all, just a heads up on another option for phone service (some people are probably aware of it, but I just found out a week ago about this and am pretty stoked). Some cordless phone sets are starting to tether to your cell phone by bluetooth. I'd highly recommend reading this review on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/review/R128TPMYJW389I/ref=cm_cr_dp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004X708T4&nodeID=172282&tag=&linkCode
If you've got more minutes than you need on your cell plan, it may be easier to just buy the panasonic set rather than the ooma.

I just had a chat with Ooma presales. After I said that their system would not work for me, they did not try to change their story to keep. Good for them. The names have been changed.

ooma: Thank you for contacting the Ooma Sales Department, how may I assist you today?

Me: I have 3 directv boxes and an alarm system. If I connect ooma to a phone jack and disconnect the phone company wire at the junction box, will all 3 still work? Along with all of the wired phones in the house?

ooma: The wired phones will but not the directv boxes and alarm system.
There's no guarantees it will work with the 3.

Me: OK. then it does not sound like ooma will work for me

ooma: Is there anything else though?

Me: no thanks

ckeilah wrote:Thanks for pointing that out, but in order to use the "two line" feature, you have to have two of these devices, I believe.

No... you don't need two devices to have two lines of service. There are three ways to use an ooma device:
1) Alone - single ooma number service
2) Ooma plus landline - plug your ooma device into an existing landline jack and your ooma can send/receive ooma calls and landline calls
3) Ooma plus another ooma number that rings on your same ooma telphone.. you'll need premiere service to get the extra ooma telephone number, but it is simply another number for outside callers with which to reach you.

ckeilah wrote:Oh, yeah... now I remember why I didn't buy this at Costco. It either said, or implied, that it had to be the first device (replacing your router) for your entire LAN! Does anyone know if that's truly the case, or is there a way to configure this to live happily on the LAN, behind a real router/gateway?

Also, I re-read the info, and sure enough, you can have another line (for what appears to be an extra, undisclosed, cost)

PS: will Ooma email voicemail to you?

It is best to place Ooma behind the modem and pass through to the router. Most internet traffic in the home is not as time sensitive as voip. It is not mandatory, but works best. If you are streaming netflix and talking on the phone and someone else internet shopping it could cause quiet gaps in the conversation otherwise. Those other activities can work around the voip quite well even while priority is given to voip.
The second line is part of the $9.99 premium package.
Messages can be transcribed or voice mailed through email.

[quote postid="4794468" user="killher"]I hate to be the contrarian to all of the Quality Posts, but I had nothing but problems with this device and Ooma in general.

Even with relatively reliable 10Mb down and 2Mb up speeds on my internet connection, I had very poor voice quality.

How long ago did you suffer through these issues? I've had ooma nearly since the beginning of their service and had some quality issues with callers hearing me... I could hear them fine, but some callers told me that I was breaking up. I tried several things to fix this, and ooma support was very helpful. Ultimately, upgrading my cable modem fixed everything and for the last two years, everything has been great with ooma.... no quality issues whatsoever.

Have one. Love it. Have the Telo handset and also the new wireless add-in, so my Ooma can go anywhere in the house as it is not hooked up to the router now. This is a good deal. You can stay with the one price or, as I did, go premier. International calls are cheap, and there are many additional features with the premier.

A cheap UPS to back up device power will resolve that issue. TDM/central office phone service is going away, just a matter of time. E911 is becoming much better. I've had two different flavors of VoIP @ home & both got to me correct 911 center during my first test call after service was established. I use cable for internet and haven't lost service during power outages.

NavyStore wrote:Remember, VoIP is okay for long distance calls or a house line for the kids, but if you lose power - or there is an emergency and you have to call 911 - you'll want a traditional hard line phone that gets its' dial tone from the central office.

Good luck with this - but I'll never trust VoIP in my house after our neighbors house caught fire!

Everybody thinks you get a Magic Jack and you have to plug it into your computer. That's true of the old Magic Jack. The new Magic Jack PLUS just plugs into your router - no computer required.

Magic Jack is $69 to buy. $0/month for the first year. After that you buy another year for $19.95 which works out to $1.67/month.

So MJ is cheaper to buy and cheaper to run. But $3 vs $1.67 isn't a huge difference.

For me the main thing is free NORTH AMERICA calling (ie Canada AND the USA) with Magic Jack not just free AMERICAN calling with Ooma.

juicius wrote:Unless you have a UPS connected to your modem, router, and Ooma device, if power goes out, no phone service. Or if your ISP is having problems in your area, no phone service even if you have power. Or you have UPS connected to modem, router, and Ooma but have Ooma connected to a big corded phone that requires its own power source and power goes out, no phone service.

It's probably worth it to invest in a UPS ($50 or so) and have the modem, router and Ooma plugged into it. Together, those devices draw relatively little juice that you'll have phone and internet service during most power outages not lasting several hours.

oh wow! I learn something new - what is a UPS? Where can I get one?Verizon is on my short list. They keep saying they'll fix the easement problems (their fault or predecessor's fault in initial filing) and install FIOS on my street, but it's all lies, lies, lies - and badly told ones at that. Hey, they have a 51% stake in Directv, so they have no interest in giving me anything else - they've got me now, but I'm trying hard to leave.

I like Ooma. I have used it for over a year with the premium services. Every few months something gets the device fouled up and I need to unplug it and restart it. Missed calls are sent to my inbox when it or my internet are down or I don't answer.

Vonage looks expensive by comparison.

Magicjack plus looks cheaper

Technically it is VoIP, not a land line per se. I pay $3.47 per months vs. $26 for an AT&T land line. After I saved enough to pay for the Ooma, I started the premier service (so now it is $13.47 month).

There have been to active W.o.W games going with no quality loss, but a pure file download or PtP download will cause dropout.

Cool option with the blacklist is the ability to choose what happens, ring forever (my favorite) but only they hear it, straight to voice mail, or a preset record we don't like you message and disconnect.

TCayer wrote:People with kids need a land line for the house. It's good to have a base where you know you can make contact.

I had vonage for about six years, and just ported over to ooma telo. My kids were 6 and 8 years old when i first started using vonage. They are 12 and 14 now. Why would i need a landline? I can still make 911 calls from Ooma or a cell phone. My power rarely goes out, but I can fix that with a UPS. What are you worried about?

sdc100 wrote:It's often considered a landline because most home Internet service is hardwired and terrestrial. In other words, it's a "line" going through the "land," as opposed to the air (yes, I'm aware that some Internet data are routed through satellites).

Also, the new MagicJack Plus can operate as a standalone device as well as use the computer.

Yeah, IF your brand new Magic Jack Plus works. Which mine refused to do. And when I checked the net for help, I found a ton of folks whose MJPlus did not connect either. So, careful, bub.... if yours works, fine. If not, you´re absolutely screwed. MagicJack help line? Fuhgeddabouddit.

JRuegg wrote:I've had one for seven months now and no complaints. I have three small children. For $3.50 a month, there's a phone on the wall that always works. Whether it's for babysitters with a dead cell phone or some other emergency the phone is just there. For me, it's worth it.

agreed...having a landline with small kiddos is a good thing

Thanks to LastApeMan for the tip about Nettalk. Seemingly not rated by Consumer Reports, but such a low price that it seemed worth the gamble. I just pulled the trigger on that per LastApeMan's recommendation.

ckeilah wrote:Thanks for pointing that out, but in order to use the "two line" feature, you have to have two of these devices, I believe.

You do not need two devices for it to work. However you need an Ooma handset for it to work in a cool fashion. If you only have wired phones, the second call goes to voice mail instead of a busy tone.

If you have an Ooma handset ($50) you get the option of holding the first call and answering the second. I had it happened for the first time last night, I was talking on the Ooma handset and another call came in, ringing the wired phones in the house which was eerie... The Ooma handset let me put the first call on hold, 'flash' over and then get back to the first call when done. A sort of multiple line phone without 4 wires. The Ooma handset is wireless (iirc) to the Ooma, like a normal wireless phone is to a base station.

Has anyone had experience using this (Ooma or equivalent) in a rental apartment? (providing to renters, not as the renter)

Our property manager is talking about switching the landlines in the apartments to Magic Jacks (largely because it provides coverage to CANADA as well as US -- lots of "snow birds" from Canada here in Hawaii during the winter so that's an important consideration and something the landline currently doesn't provide).

Thanks for any pros/cons to this idea.

Got one of these a couple years ago from woot - still working great! occasionally it drops a call or the voices start sounding like robots but well worth it!

This AGAIN!?!

What's the point of this (or a landline phone of any sort), unless you spend years on the phone, or live in the boonies where there's no cellphone reception?

Re: Apartment & MagicJack:

My MJ travels with me on the road, and I use it at hotspots in Starbucks, hotels, and campgrounds.

It's pretty portable. I payed 69 bucks for 5 years of service.

I also like that MJ sends me emails with vm attachments.. I can 'listen' to them on my iPad, etc.

If your internet pipe is small and you use any of these products, call quality can be affected.

For the folks who have an one of these, do any of you have the BT dongle?

I have desk phone that currently allows me to use a bluetooth headset, which I VERY much like. But it's seen better days (Plantronics has discontinued the model, even), so I find myself looking for an alternative. The way I read the description, the BT dongle will let me use a regular headset paired to the base the same as any cell phone. Just not sure how you'd make calls then.

Has anyone done this? How (well) does it work?

Thanks!

The magic Jack Plus has excellent sound quality and it connects to your router...no PC like the older unit. The cost is $2.70 per month thats LESS the Ooma's taxes and fees per month. The magic jack is cheaper, smaller and has as good quailty. The Ooma is obsolute since the plus came out...junk.

sdc100 wrote:OOMA TELO vs MAGIC JACK PLUS

From what I've heard (no pun intended), Magic Jack's voice quality is not as good as Ooma. Consumer Reports gave Ooma its coveted top rating, although admittedly, the new Magic Jack was not yet available.

Ooma is free for life. Magic Jack charges an annual fee of $19.95. The free first year that came with the original MagicJack is gone. Then again, Ooma does have $4 in monthly regulatory fees (which goes to the government, not Ooma). If MagicJack Plus has no additional fees to the $19.95, then MJ ends up cheaper.

AND ... Magic Jack is no more than a dongle. All functions require a computer or phone keypad. Ooma is a multifunction unit. For example, it has answering machine functions so you can check messages without lifting your phone. More importantly, you can screen calls through the unit's speaker. I don't think there's any way to screen calls with a MagicJack (unless you attach an answering machine. But that means deactivating voicemail. If you deactivate voicemail, you won't get email notification or voicemail archiving).

AND ... the Telo can now operate wirelessly through WiFi with an optional dongle. MagicJack needs to be plugged into your router or a computer. A bonus feature of this dongle is that your Telo then becomes a wireless hub for other other things. For example, you can plug a printer or computer into the Telo.

DrAzzy wrote:This AGAIN!?!

What's the point of this (or a landline phone of any sort), unless you spend years on the phone, or live in the boonies where there's no cellphone reception?

Living with cellphone only seems to suit you. Not everyone is in that boat.

LloydS wrote:Thanks to LastApeMan for the tip about Nettalk. Seemingly not rated by Consumer Reports, but such a low price that it seemed worth the gamble. I just pulled the trigger on that per LastApeMan's recommendation.

If any1 is interested in the comparison, I've had Nettalk and have had their service for a couple of years. The device still works very well, and is much less resource hungry than the TELO as I can use my Nettalk device with my 768k DSL. With Ooma, there is no way that you could use it properly w/ 768K. And the price for the Nettalk DUO is much cheaper to buy and also less per year than the taxes cost per year with OOMA. And you get calls to Canada for free as well instead of just U.S.

Had my Ooma for about 2 years. When you get it connected, it works great! However, if my power goes out, when it comes back on the Ooma doesn't reset itself properly and therefore doesn't work. Could be because it is trying to communicate with the Internet before the modem has had a chance to reset itself - not sure. But the sound quality is great and the reliability has been very good. Well worth it! I haven't paid a phone bill in almost 2 years.

Actually, Ooma says that all refurb units have a 12-month warranty, despite what the Woot info says. Woot is listed as a certified reseller.

What kind of warranty do refurbished devices come with?
Your refurbished Ooma unit will come with a 12-month factory warranty. This warranty will be automatically registered when you activate your device online.

EDIT:

Michael Pollard: Your website says that refurbished units have a 12-month warranty. Woot's site says that refurbished units have a 180-day warranty. Your site says that Woot is a certified reseller. Which is correct?
Agent: Woot is a certified reseller
The refurbished unit those are referring to are the ones sold directly by Ooma.
Michael Pollard: Do you mean that the units through Woot only have half the warranty of the ones bought directly from Ooma, even though they are a certified reseller?
Agent: Yes.

That means that we save $20 for the six-months of warranty. Which is appropriate, sort of, since a one-year extended warranty costs $40.

I bought one of these last year to escape our $48/month landline. We still have our landline because Ooma had too many serious issues.

1) They couldn't port our landline phone number

2) Oooma interfered with our WiFi signal in our home (Belkin n+ router)

The Ooma has been in the box since that attempt.

Sorry if this has been addressed before this post. For those that experience great call quality ect. was your internet speed around 10meg DSL or was it higher?

Here the max we could get was 10 meg down and I think 3 meg up.

Bought one in the Woot right before xmas, and got it on the 24th. (Fastest shipping ever for a Woot.)

So far, very happy.

Two things I have done with it that nobody else has posted, first I happened to have a wireless bridge, so I didn't have to buy the wifi dongle. Cost is probably about the same unless you find a used one.

Second, I have successfully connected my DirecTV box to the Ooma and got the daily TiVo call to go through. I used the comma and the star 99.

I have a grandfathered cheap landline and porting will kill my DSL until I set up a new account, and make me go to a more expensive dry connection. So I suppose I will keep it for the alarm and dire emergency contingency calling - a cell system out-, internet down- type disaster. So it's going to take a lot longer to pay off the investment since I only knocked $10 off the bill by dropping call forwarding and non published listing.

Anyway, I love the Ooma forwarding features, multi ring, call log, emailing the messages, and call screening. Not sure yet if I will keep Premiere after the trial.

One other bonus, that red light on the front is Ooma's way of telling you it's offline; this tells me when I need to reboot the DSL modem without the frustration on being unable to get online myself. It's a blue light when all is well. You can also set it so all the lights stay off, if it's a bother.

I purchased the earlier version a couple years ago (for a lot more money)and it works flawlessly. I had a problem a year back with outgoing faxes however they fixed the issue on their end and it has worked perfectly since. I live in the mountains and use DSL @ 7 meg down and around 1.5 up. No complaints about voice quality or echos. I originally went with ooma because I was still recieving faxes from customers and it was the only reliable VOIP system that worked easily with fax machines. I still send faxes at least weekly for expensing and everything works great.
I would buy this unit in a second if I had any problem with my older unit..

When I first got my Ooma device (an older Hub), I only has 3Mb Internet and it worked great.

I have it on a different port off my wireless router than my computer, not passing everything through it like they want, but my ISP is probably already doing QoS for VoIP traffic since they offer VoIP themselves.

MWPollard wrote:When I first got my Ooma device (an older Hub), I only has 3Mb Internet and it worked great.

I have it on a different port off my wireless router than my computer, not passing everything through it like they want, but my ISP is probably already doing QoS for VoIP traffic since they offer VoIP themselves.

I only have 1mb internet. sob. I'm the one with no verizon FIOS since they totally messed up recording easements years ago, and some folks don't want them to install the new fios. I either have to go back to Cox cable (aaaiiiieeee) or find some other alternative. (wordy response for: so 1mg download speed won't work with ooma?)

Thanks for pointing that out, but in order to use the "two line" feature, you have to have two of these devices, I believe.

If you have Premier ($10/month) you can have 2 totally different phone numbers. No need for an extra unit. Without Premier, you can still pick up a phone and get a dial tone on kinda an invisible line

Best thing I ever bought... works with my dect6 phones and home network with NO PROBLEM! I bought a second one for the office and love that too. Now I buy them to give as gifts. A pox on att and verizon and twc and everybody else that ever charged me waaaay too much. OOMA is the way to go.

AT&T is trying to force me to use VOIP with them. I think it's time to drop the landline phone line with them. I need to save some money and this will pay for itself within 5 months.