gnarf wrote:not true, they do require electricity but if you have a battery backup (UPS) it will work. just make sure your ooma and modem are on battery backup power, (as well as your phone base). But its rare to find someone without a cordless phone so if the power goes out so does their phone. and of course who doesn't have at least one cell phone

-----------------------------------
in truth, a phone that is stand alone (no base station), uses the electricity the phone company provides on the land line. This power is battery backed up by Ma Bell. Sooooo even when the power is out, standard voltage for the telephone system is 48 volts DC. Ringing voltage is much higher, around 90 volts AC.
Ta Dah!

Can anyone briefly explain the difference between this and MagicJack? that's 19.95 a year and this is $139 flat fee, plus taxes on the call. what's better or what more do you get with this thing?

carygrant wrote:Anyone know if it assigns you a phone number with your local area code?

I have had this same system for a year or so. I LOVE IT! It has saved me losts of money. When you signup for service it gives you a whole host of numbers to choose from..then poof you get that number or you can port your own number from you existing phone carrier. Take the plunge BUY IT!

zminus2 wrote:Ok, I've read through a lot of the comments but not all of them. I'm considering this thing because I have piss-poor cell signal in my basement apartment. The AT&T option is the 3G Microcell which doesn't look that great.

So I guess what I want to know is, if I'm using my iPhone with the bluetooth adapter, my calls are coming from Ooma, right? So would I be able to text message through AT&T? That's the biggest pain in the ass, not being able to send/receive texts in my house. Actually ok not being able to send/receive calls is worse, but I talk less frequently than text...

Anyone have advice? Curious about iPhone compatibility, anyone have personal experience? God I hate AT&T.

Well, I'm not 100% sure but I don't think texting will work. You can use their bluetooth adapter to get your calls on the IPhone, but I think texting still goes over the air.

Bit much on the Steve Jobs parody there, Woot. I know, I know, when you skewer others I laugh too... but Steve Jobs is sacred to me, and real, and it stung to hear Him belittled, even tongue in cheek.

Preparing for the inevitable onslaught of mockery now...

Geez, Woot - get it right! Despite what some untrained retail persons say, it is a MOCK TURTLE NECK not a mock neck. Look at it and figure it out.

As I've tried to tell said retail persons, with little comprehension, if I had a mock neck my head would likely fall off.

sounds great, but how can i connect multiple phones to the system. i have 4 phones in my house

copperweb wrote:Well, I'm not 100% sure but I don't think texting will work. You can use their bluetooth adapter to get your calls on the IPhone, but I think texting still goes over the air.

What kind of bluetooth adapter is it? Special to Ooma? b/c I have a usb bluetooth dongle...

I imagine there's a texting service that runs over wifi, hmm..

The fee calculator tells me that this service will cost me only $3.45 a month for unlimited local and U.S long distance service. WooHoo!
But, if you have an old laptop lying around, you can reuse it as a dedicated server to run MagicJack, and get the same service for less than $2.00 a month -- including 911 service.
I'll keep my MagicJack...

bobd13492 wrote:sounds great, but how can i connect multiple phones to the system. i have 4 phones in my house

The unit has 2 phone jacks on the back. 1 for a phone next to the unit and another to connect to a wall jack, which will feed dial-tone to your other home outlets.

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 kind of a 'fluke' situation though. Just as likely, your own house could burn down melting your home phone, or the junction box the landlines connects to could blow or lose power, or a million other situations more likely than all servicing cell towers being destroyed.

If you don't have a cellphone, I, too, agree that you should be leery for the simple fact of not having phone service if the power is out. But then again, a lot of people have only cordless phones, those are useless without power too.

One inexpensive solution to that problem, however, would be a UPS (Universal Power Supply) battery backup. Many models are around $100 and could power a modem and telo for hours. If it were me, I would use a unit JUST for my Cable/DSL modem, router (if applicable), and Ooma box. The low power draw of those devices would leave you online and ready to make and receive calls for hours. That's how your copper landlines stay energized when the power is out, why not take the technology home?

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'm a vonage user and connected the vonage router to my internal home phone wires (after phycialy disconnecting the Verizon connection). Worked just fine but didn't have enough "oomph" to make lots of phones ring. A ring booster (I think made by Viking) fixed that, although it was another $100 or so.

CB

phacopida wrote:My power goes out at least a dozen times every year and my land-line corded phone ALWAYS works in this situation. It is the only reason we keep the relic. When the power is out for several days and our cell phones cannot be recharged, we are mighty glad we have the old dinosaur.

If you buy a charger for your car, your cell phones can be recharged even if your electricity is out. Of course, you need to have gas in your car and a decent battery :-}

john27 wrote:That's kind of a 'fluke' situation though. Just as likely, your own house could burn down melting your home phone, or the junction box the landlines connects to could blow or lose power, or a million other situations more likely than all servicing cell towers being destroyed.

If you don't have a cellphone, I, too, agree that you should be leery for the simple fact of not having phone service if the power is out. But then again, a lot of people have only cordless phones, those are useless without power too.

One inexpensive solution to that problem, however, would be a UPS (Universal Power Supply) battery backup. Many models are around $100 and could power a modem and telo for hours. If it were me, I would use a unit JUST for my Cable/DSL modem, router (if applicable), and Ooma box. The low power draw of those devices would leave you online and ready to make and receive calls for hours. That's how your copper landlines stay energized when the power is out, why not take the technology home?

The UPS is a good idea, but may not work for everyone. All my network equipment, including Vonage box and phone, is on a UPS, but when power goes out in my neighborhood, I still lose internet. Something on the cable company's side is apparently losing power.

Anybody have an monitored ADT alarm system connection through their phone? Wondering how this will work?

I bought Ooma during the previous Woot and have been very happy with it. Now if I could only say the same about Qwest (but that's another story...).

There was nothing on the Oooma unit I received that indicated it was refurbished.

I signed up for a year of the Premier service to get the free number port. I am currently only using a few of the Premier options, but so far so good. Taxes run me $3.74/month. I set up my second line in a different city so my parents could call us using a local number (very nice!).

In short, Ooma was easy to set up, they handled their side of my land line number port just fine, and call quality has been good. My existing wireless phones worked behind this unit without any problems. My DSL modem and wireless network have also been compatible with Ooma. I have my DSL modem, the Ooma unit, and my wireless phone base unit plugged into a dedicated UPS and was able to make calls during a recent power outage.

Having Ooma's servers available while my ISP (Qwest/MSN) is trying to get my DSL stable again (after the voice number port completed) has been a very "good thing". I like Ooma's voice mail system, as does my spouse.

If you're looking to make a switch to VoIP or looking to change VoIP providers, I would recommend Ooma.

Just don't ask me about Qwest...

bobd13492 wrote:sounds great, but how can i connect multiple phones to the system. i have 4 phones in my house

I have 4 phone 3 of which get the signal for the base unit which is connected to the ooma.

if you have 4 separate jacks you connect the ooma to one jack then all jacks should receive it, just like it worked with you other service. You will only be able to use one line at a time if you had Multi lines with ooma,you can switch hooks/lines if you are at the ooma box.

doxylover wrote:Anybody have an monitored ADT alarm system connection through their phone? Wondering how this will work?

Alarm companies do not support VoIP phone lines. They will install a cellular unit for communication with their service. I was charged a one-time fee of $89 for such a device.

I purchased this last time and could not be happier. The Ooma support was great, it was very easy to set up and works perfectly!

lightknight wrote:Beware of any internet-based phone system, they are only as reliable as your internet service and your power (If either go down, you're out of luck).

I have GV. If the power goes out, my Macbook can operate via WiFi and I can recharge the Macbook battery in my car.
I can also reroute all (or selected) GV calls to my cell, which I can also recharge in my car.
I'm going to be looking into the power backup packs as mentioned in several posts here.

I have one, and love it. Calls are clear and reliable. My decade-old cordless handset works fine.

One warning: Their local-number selection is pretty limited in some areas. There were only 3 local numbers available in the Twin Cities, MN area when I got mine. For those that don't live here, that's only 3 numbers available between 4 possible area codes.

Otherwise, setup is a breeze, and the service costs me about $3/month for the taxes. I don't have Premium, but the basic service does everything I need

nycesq wrote:Does anyone know how the basic (free) service works with a Google Voice number? Can you disable the Ooma voicemail so that the Goole Voice voicemail will answer?

With my setup I distribute my Google number (its easier to remember anyway) and then have Google ring my ooma. If I don't pick up my ooma then it will go to Google voice mail (not oomas)

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....

Sheesh... Where on the planet do you live? Sounds like Armageddon!

Had one a year ago. Worked great for about a month. Then base unit stopped working. After 2+ weeks talking with tech support and doing the same trouble shooting over and over I returned it. They didn't want to admit the base unit was defective. If you get one, just pray you never have to call tech support.

My only complaint is that there is a 1 second delay in conversations in some cases... Other then that, Its a great system!

I'd like to pull the trigger on this but worried that I'll get it set up and something sucks for some reason, most likely because my DSL quality is not, not the ooma itself.

It would be nice to get back some of the one and a half Benjamins, is there a thriving market for these on eb*y or cra1gsl1st, as Ooma's money-back guarantee probably does not apply for refurbs?

Why would I want this over a $40 Majicjack?

phacopida wrote:My power goes out at least a dozen times every year and my land-line corded phone ALWAYS works in this situation. It is the only reason we keep the relic. When the power is out for several days and our cell phones cannot be recharged, we are mighty glad we have the old dinosaur.

Where do you live? Iraq?

Can anyone who already has this tell me if the incoming ring pattern is a "Normal" ring pattern? I had T-Mobile @Home VOIP and not only was the sound quality poor, but the incoming ring pattern was twice as fast as a normal one. Instead of ring..... ring..... ring..... it was ring.. ring.. ring.. etc

don't do it. Their service dept. is non existant. I spent hours on the phone with incompatibiity issues and nothing was resolved and ended up sending it back. Not worth the hassle.

Tinypackages wrote: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.

You must be an employee of the company to be this persistent. Others have shown that the information you provided to pump up Net Talk is bogus. If you are a paid spokesperson for Net Talk, they need to get their money back.

By the way, to most thinking people the fact that it can be bought at Wal-Mart does not bolster he products credibility.

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.

You can add a free Google Voice account to get all the nifty email vmail features and much more.

From Ooma's Terms and Conditions...

Unlimited voice calling is intended for continuous, live conversation between two individuals. Lack of continuous conversation, unusual calling patterns, excessive caller and calling destinations and/or excessive usage (e.g. 5,000 minutes per base unit per month or more) will be considered as indicators that your use of the Equipment may be inconsistent with normal residential usage.

Just how do they know that you're calling people and listening to eachother breathe, eh?

jomion wrote:Not necessarily...With there "premiere service" ($10 a month) you can have the system auto-forward to a cell or land line when the electricity is out.

Don't count on a cell phone during emergencies. If things are bad enough that the power is out, the cellular towers either will be out or clogged with other calls. I'll always keep a landline, even if it's just a bare bones service. I want a Batphone in the house.

Does this work with home alarm monitoring systems? We have ADT, and my understanding is that their system periodically contacts our phone to check its status. Would Ooma allow this? I would be positively thrilled if it did, b/c I hate having to pay so many phone companies every month for minimal services.

mrtimbr549 wrote:-----------------------------------
in truth, a phone that is stand alone (no base station), uses the electricity the phone company provides on the land line. This power is battery backed up by Ma Bell. Sooooo even when the power is out, standard voltage for the telephone system is 48 volts DC. Ringing voltage is much higher, around 90 volts AC.
Ta Dah!

You seemed to have missed the guy's point. His point was that people use cordless phones these days that rely on power to work. Thus, unless you have an old-school phone AND a land-line, you will still be at the mercy of the power grid.

MWPollard wrote:
Besides, that's 83 1/3 hours a month. If you spend 83 HOURS a month on the phone, you really need to get a life.

Heh- in the Elder Days of the internet, it'd take that long to download a DVD over a dialup connection.

Fortunately, we are living in an enlightened and modern era where one can download a movie in 20 minutes or so.

Picked this up during the last Woot offering. I am very happy with the purchase. It replaced my T-Mobile @home service which was $10/month but I had to have a mobile contract to keep their service. Getting Ooma allowed me to go to a carrier with much better coverage.

That being said, I was able to port my "home" number to Ooma, took about 2 weeks. I have it sitting behind my router, but I have opened up the ports and did some QOS for it and haven't had any issues.

The dial tone is weird, but I'm used to it. I have a 4 phone setup in my house and have no issues with that.

Buy this! It is worth every penny!

I got mine at the last Woot, and I've been very happy with it.

Shut down my phone service, got the ooma upgrade so I could port my old number over and get the fax on a second line and use my Google Voice number.

Had a little trouble with the fax, but it's remedied (so far) by adding *99 before each fax.

Had a leftover bluetooth dongle, plugged it in and it worked except there's a delay that I find unacceptable. I prefer to not use the oom-BT-iPhone as a way of communicating. Maybe with some tweaking I can figure it out better. I'm not expecting that their proprietary BT dongle would be faster?

Was almost gonna buy a second for for a vacation place, but the house only has ADSL, but that's the only reason I didn't.

Now my wife hates me more for always telling her to hang up her iPhone and use the house line for the hours on the phone with her family, but it's really decreased our AT&T minutes.

Recommended.

Seroc99 wrote:Can anyone briefly explain the difference between this and MagicJack? that's 19.95 a year and this is $139 flat fee, plus taxes on the call. what's better or what more do you get with this thing?

This has already been explained at least three times. Why don't people simply read instead of expecting people to do it for them?