mvsopen wrote:
First, there is no uninstall program for a Magic Jack, so to remove it, you have to use the REGEDIT program. Not good if you're not comfortable performing 'brain surgery' on your PC.

Not true. The program is listed in Windows Control Panel Add/Remove Programs. If that doesn't work, MJ supplies an uninstall program on its website. Just search the FAQ for "uninstall".

linksdeity wrote:With the widespread commodity of cellphones and the fact that you can get a house phone for $7 from any store (one that will actually work if the power goes out), I don't understand why people buy things like this.

Because some people actually call OTHER coutries. Depending on your cell plan and country calling, this can be Very expensive.

Got it about 6 months ago on woot. Sign up for the extra Premier service so I could get the phone for free.

What is bad about it. The phone isn't all that great don't waste your money. The phone book online is supposed to update your ooma phone but mine really never seems to do so correctly. It will do fine with new number but if you have to change a name or number it won't take to the phone. You can't put numbers directly into the phone either. Also I must have an older cordless phone set because ooma will not work with them. They ring and I can use them but all that shows on the phones is NO DATA. No caller ID I have had a few issues with calls dropping out but only a few not to bad

The good. Sound quality is outstanding. The price $3.47 a month can't be beat. I used to have packet 8 and this thing blow is away. It's clear and crisp when your talking to someone. Voice mail is also good.

So bottom line get it. Their website and user interface could use some work. Also may not work with your current phone system but for the price and how clear it sounds it's well worth the investment.

P.s I did find out that I have to put it behind my router in order for my hava player to stream better when i'm using it in remote viewing at work.

kukulkap wrote:That's exactly what I have. Comcast cable(about 12mb of real speed) with Ooma. I work from home and frequently use MS Live Meeting and Webex while being connected via VPN, all works great.

Great, I made my purchase. Thanks!

Got this from woot last time. Even though it's supposed to be refurbished, it looked brand new. Couldn't get it to work initially, sent it back and got a new one, didn't have to pay shipping. Still couldn't get it to work. I had an old DSL modem at home and I brought the new one to work that had a new DSL modem and it worked fine so I just called Verizon and they sent me a new DSL modem.

I guess I'm one of the few here that have premier, I signed up for a year to get the free number porting. Other solutions mentioned like nettalk, MJ don't allow porting so there wasn't any other option for me.

I could just upgrade my cell phone plan to unlimited for another $10 and get some bluetooth cordless phones but I had my number for over 20 years and didn't want to get rid of it. One other thing is that I plan to use my home number in ads, I've gotten a few spam text messages when I've posted the cell phone number. Can't get spam text on a landline.

Also I recall reading somewhere that about 25% of ooma users sign up for premier so they do have some other revenue coming in. Also I think their model is that at some point your Telo will break and then you'll have to buy a new one so it won't be just 3.47 forever.

Zetalidan wrote:I use Skype as my home phone, would this be suggested over Skype?

I don't have a lot of money and Skype is so cheap compared to standard phone service, but some of the downsides nag at the back of my mind. Lack of 911 is one of the big ones.

In the long run, this seems like the better deal, but I like hearing from others.

Edit: Guy above me likes it over Skype. Good to know :D

Anyone else? And any reasons why that I might not have thought of?

I always wonder about the 911 thing - you are going to pay $20-$40 for a traditional land line on the off chance that something will happen to you and you will be able to dial 911, but not be able to talk?

mvsopen wrote:Do NOT compare this to Magic Jack! I work in info security, and I purchased a MJ a few months ago. Yes, it works as advertised, but you also give an unknown company access to you files, a list of everyone you call, and every website you visit.

First, there is no uninstall program for a Magic Jack, so to remove it, you have to use the REGEDIT program. Not good if you're not comfortable performing 'brain surgery' on your PC.

Next, the "company" is a PO Box in Florida. Why won't they list a valid address?

Then comes the privacy statement. There isn't one in the package. I finally found one on-line, you grant them FULL RIGHTS to your system.

After you read their terms and conditions, I have no doubt you'll take it back to the store - That thing is spyware!

MajicJack is very clever. People don't realize how much spyware a usb device like MJ can hold. Think of it as a USB drive you found in the parking lot of a DEF CON® Hacking Conference.

MajicJack is backed by AOL.

'nuff said.

Bought this several months ago from Woot. It was cheaper then.

If you have the cheapest internet service, Ooma service does not work very well. You may have to upgrade your internet service a bit, pay a bit more for faster service and you'll have a great set up. Even with an extra ten bucks per month for a faster internet service, it's worth it.

My complaint doesn't lie with the ooma service at all. My only real complaint lies with telephone manufacturers. When are you butt heads going to make better home phones?

stupido wrote:VoIP is not for everyone. If you want the five 9s reliability of a traditional analog land line, do not get a VoIP solution. Five 9s is 99.999% up time.

Obviously, a land line costs more but you get more reliability for it. There are techs on duty or on call 24/7. The company is regulated by the PSC in your state. Outages can cost the telephone company big fines if they are not resolved.

VoIP depends on your internet service. Most ISP's do not treat their residential product as a mission critical item.

I would not suggest one to drop their land line if they do not already have reliable cell phone service in their neighborhood.

I have had OOMA for 2 years, since I got it, I have not paid ANY phone bills whatsoever, and I have had 0 downtime.

I am severely baffled that anyone with high speed internet would still have a landline phone.


FYI: 5mbps AT&T DSL the entire time, I can be downloading at 5mbps and phone continues to work fine.

There is no need to pay for the VOIP extras, there really isn't.

NETTALK'S DUO BLOWS THIS OOMA DEVICE OUT OF THE WATER. MORE PORTABLE, CHEAPER, AND YOU CAN PURCHASE IT BRAND NEW INSTEAD OF REFURBISHED SO YOU HAVE AN ACTUAL RETURN POLICY. ALL ANYONE ON HERE CAN TALK ABOUT IS MAJICJACK AND OOMA....VERY SILLY INDEED....

globalhavoc wrote:I have had OOMA for 2 years, since I got it, I have not paid ANY phone bills whatsoever, and I have had 0 downtime.

I am severely baffled that anyone with high speed internet would still have a landline phone.

snip

Baffled? I'm still debating for four reasons:
1. I've never had an internet connection that hasn't gone down (high speed) for less than a few days a year, and I have a really basic cell phone/plan that doesn't always work and drops calls.

2. As mentioned several times above, if you need 911 and the power's out/internet is out, you better have a reliable cell phone/backup residential service/backup power supply for the Ooma and modem.

3. Ooma seems more stable than a lot of tech-based companies, but the one thing about an AT&T or Verizon is you know they aren't going out of business anytime soon.

4. Although the majority seem to have great sound quality with Ooma, some don't get the great quality/have that delay in conversation. The one thing I can say with a landline (even though they can fail too) is that I've never had a landline give me trouble.

It's a question of priorities, that's all. FWIW.

Fountain3586 wrote:Bought this several months ago from Woot. It was cheaper then.

If you have the cheapest internet service, Ooma service does not work very well. You may have to upgrade your internet service a bit, pay a bit more for faster service and you'll have a great set up. Even with an extra ten bucks per month for a faster internet service, it's worth it.

My complaint doesn't lie with the ooma service at all. My only real complaint lies with telephone manufacturers. When are you butt heads going to make better home phones?

Another reason why the Duo from Nettalk is superior to OOma's service. You can reliably run the Duo on the slowest 768 k/bps dsl line (which is what I have) b/c it takes a lot less resources than Ooma does. I can even use the internet at the same time and as long as I am not downloading too much, it sounds perfect.

What is the benefit of using the Ooma cordless phone over the cordless phones I already have?

globalhavoc wrote:
I am severely baffled that anyone with high speed internet would still have a landline phone.

Major ice storm in Lexington a few years ago. I had no power for two weeks. Many of the cell sites went down including the one near my house. I restrung my land line and twisted the wires together and had my phone back. No cell, no power but I did have analog phone.

sarahjoe wrote:Another reason why the Duo from Nettalk is superior to OOma's service. You can reliably run the Duo on the slowest 768 k/bps dsl line (which is what I have) b/c it takes a lot less resources than Ooma does. I can even use the internet at the same time and as long as I am not downloading too much, it sounds perfect.

I never said that it didn't work. I said it didn't work well, especially if you have a cordless crap phone.

You're just promoting nettalk. Never heard of it, don't care.

Fountain3586 wrote:I never said that it didn't work. I said it didn't work well, especially if you have a cordless crap phone.

You're just promoting nettalk. Never heard of it, don't care.

To me, if you've never heard of something and don't care about it, that is pure ignorance. When you first heard about OOma, did you say that as well? Or maybe your parents told you about OOma growing up since it wasn't invented yet....Silly...

Fountain3586 wrote:I never said that it didn't work. I said it didn't work well, especially if you have a cordless crap phone.

You're just promoting nettalk. Never heard of it, don't care.

Oh, and BTW, I am not promoting Nettalk, I have no interest in the company whatsoever, I'm just letting people know my personal experience so they can make an informed decision, much like you are attempting to do, by commenting on your experiences. I figure if they don't know about it, they may not want to be ignorant to it before making their decision.

Looks like the Telo being sold at Costo.com is including
the Premier service not cost.

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11630170&search=ooma&topnav=&Mo=0&cm_re=1_en-_-Top_Left_Nav-_-Top_search&lang=en-US&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&N=5000043&whse=BC&Dx=mode%20matchallpartial&Ntk=Text_Search&Dr=P_CatalogName:BC&Ne=4000000&D=ooma&Ntt=ooma&No=0&Nty=1&Ntx=mode%20matchallpartial


Anyone know about this?

bukzin wrote:Looks like the Telo being sold at Costo.com is including
the Premier service not cost.

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11630170&search=ooma&topnav=&Mo=0&cm_re=1_en-_-Top_Left_Nav-_-Top_search&lang=en-US&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&N=5000043&whse=BC&Dx=mode%20matchallpartial&Ntk=Text_Search&Dr=P_CatalogName:BC&Ne=4000000&D=ooma&Ntt=ooma&No=0&Nty=1&Ntx=mode%20matchallpartial


Anyone know about this?

60 days Premier service, just like here (I'm assuming, based on what others said before me), when I read the product description, since Woot isn't selling the premier service, it's a part of signing up.
http://www.ooma.com/products/ooma-telo/features

sarahjoe wrote:Oh, and BTW, I am not promoting Nettalk, I have no interest in the company whatsoever, I'm just letting people know my personal experience so they can make an informed decision, much like you are attempting to do, by commenting on your experiences. I figure if they don't know about it, they may not want to be ignorant to it before making their decision.

Actually, a few people brought up NetTalk earlier (including me). It's an option, not with as many features, but it looked interesting when I read the website info.

bukzin wrote:Looks like the Telo being sold at Costo.com is including
the Premier service not cost.

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11630170&search=ooma&topnav=&Mo=0&cm_re=1_en-_-Top_Left_Nav-_-Top_search&lang=en-US&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&N=5000043&whse=BC&Dx=mode%20matchallpartial&Ntk=Text_Search&Dr=P_CatalogName:BC&Ne=4000000&D=ooma&Ntt=ooma&No=0&Nty=1&Ntx=mode%20matchallpartial


Anyone know about this?

The Costco Telo only has a 60 day Premier Service(which I believe you get when you register the product no matter where you buy it), but you get the Bluetooth adapter for free.

On a side note I was able to get a Bluetooth adapter I had on hand to work with the Telo.

Been with ooma almost since the beginning. Tried magicjack but didn't want to leave my computer on all the time. Didn't want to pay $25/month with Vonage. Like paying once and also being able to use my old land line #. Great quality and customer service too.

I got (1) about 6-8 months ago and it has worked great! I just plugged it into my router and away it went. I have (3) phones attached to it, (2) old MaBells and (1) cordless with 4 hand sets.
I went with the basic plan. When my cable internet is down, it somehow still takes a message (must be on a server somewhere) and when cable internet comes back up the message is waiting.
$3.45 a month for a phonebill is very cool, it will pay for itself in a few more months.

Get this....period!

If you have Comcast.....check to see if you have a DOCSIS 3.0 version modem.....This will double your speed.....for free.....better compression throughputs for no additional cost.....

I bought the best possible speed for my area.....at $59.99....dumped my POTS phone and pay $3.xx for OOMA.....

I have OOMA behind my DLINK 655 router (one of the best/most reliable on the market) and also behind a 8x1 DLINK 8 port GIG switch.....(i actually have 3 of these 8x1 configured as main trunks)

I also have 12 other computers/TVS/Blurays/Stereo's/IPOD's/Kindles and other device on this network.....

And I repeat the OOMA is not having a problem with "contention" with all these devices if you have put your money in having the "correct" configuration and throughput taken care of.....

I hope this helps.....

PS.....I threw the Magic Jack in the garbage.....because that is where it belongs......This is not even in the same league as that POS!

kuma99 wrote:MajicJack is very clever. People don't realize how much spyware a usb device like MJ can hold. Think of it as a USB drive you found in the parking lot of a DEF CON® Hacking Conference.

MajicJack is backed by AOL.

'nuff said.

Magic Jack - Good or Evil?

stupido wrote:Major ice storm in Lexington a few years ago. I had no power for two weeks. Many of the cell sites went down including the one near my house. I restrung my land line and twisted the wires together and had my phone back. No cell, no power but I did have analog phone.

Okay, well, regarding urban residents then. If you don't live downtown with millions of tards in skyscrapers, ignore my advice then.

Either way, I have prepaid phones and prepaid 4g internet.

linksdeity wrote:With the widespread commodity of cellphones and the fact that you can get a house phone for $7 from any store (one that will actually work if the power goes out), I don't understand why people buy things like this.

The $7 house phone looks great on the desk, but is quite useless without the phone service, the cost of which many of us are trying to offset.

dheyn wrote:This thing is fantastic! I bought mine almost a year ago and have had no problems whatsoever. It does take a good bit of time (about 45-days) for your old phone company to release your number for porting to Ooma but once it's done, it's smooth sailing from there. My monthly phone bill dropped from $80+ per month (local and long distance) down to $3.47. Yes, you read that right. I'm saving $76.53 a month with Ooma and I must say the service is great! Highly recommended!

Porting took 8 days for me! I used Ooma numbers exclusively for 4 months before deciding to port my home phone.

Did not have time to read all 200 plus comments about this item. Sounds great and probably would get it but the fact that you have to have electricity to use it. Just had my power off for a few hours because of a wind storm. If I had that and no landline, then that would mean that I would have no phone other then my cell. And I remember a few years back when 80% of the city was without power(windstorm again) for over a week. I think I will stick with a landline for awhile longer. I still get giggles about the humans calling in complaining about there phone service or net service because of that damn storm. At the time, I was working for the local DSL ISP teleco company.

lrespin wrote:I live in a condo, and I'm not even aware of a box that I would need to go out to in order to disconnect the inside wiring from. Condo built in 1993. Should there be an outside box?

lrespin

Perhaps you refer to the box the phone company installs outside your home. With all the "out of the box" phone systems, the phone company does not service indoor wiring (not for free anyway) anymore. If you have a problem, they come and check the signal at the outside box (you can too!) If there's a dial tone there, then it's a problem inside your house- and it's YOUR problem!

One last question, as I'm going in for one (regardless of the answer) - Can you plug a phone line from this thing into a wall jack, thereby makeing your home's phone jacks live?

Ooma's not perfect and not for everyone, but we enjoy not paying Verizon and saving $35/mo.

lrespin wrote:How do I find the "split point"?

um....guess. If you have a landlord get maintenance involved. If you don't check utility rooms, closets, etc. it will probably be relatively close to the outside box, but there's no guarantee. It may be a small box with pairs of four wires run through metal channels that connect them, in which case you'd have to add a connector end.. Or just a plug in splitter that goes to a main jack. My parents was just a four plug splitter behind the jack plate for the kitchen phone, which I always found strange

TCayer wrote:One last question, as I'm going in for one (regardless of the answer) - Can you plug a phone line from this thing into a wall jack, thereby makeing your home's phone jacks live?

Yes. Just disconnect the main line from the outside box or split point, plug this into a jack, and all your phones jacks should work with it.assuming your wiring. Is good. that's really its selling point in my opinion, if you don't need a whole house phone system thee are much cheaper voip options

I don't know much about this product but I do know a lot about Vonage. When I had it a couple of years ago it was terrible. False rings, disconnects, data tone in the ear, echo from your own voice; you name it.

Just wanted to add another positive review. I've been using the telo for well over a year and have been extremely happy. It's also been nice to keep the same phone number just by taking OOMA to my new place and plugging it in.

It's more than paid for itself. I got it for $199 with a $50 amazon gift card some time ago.

Bought one of these about 6 months ago and love it! We are saving major money by dropping the cable telephone. Great features. You do not need to have a computer on all the time like you do with Magic Jack. Excellent voice quality.

mypinkcat wrote:Bought one of these about 6 months ago and love it! We are saving major money by dropping the cable telephone. Great features. You do not need to have a computer on all the time like you do with Magic Jack. Excellent voice quality.

I have got to do thumbs down on this one

Ooma has some MAJOR internal regulatory issues, until those problems are fixed this is a very bad deal.
The company internally has been blowing through money unreasonably. Spending it mostly on R&D. And lavish corporate gifts. They also deployed ooma in haiti and spent thousands of dollars on disaster relief. This is very unrealistic for a startup.

I don't see them being around in another year or two.
Unfortunately.

Its really sad too, because the device is really great. But for the long term i'd take the nettalk duo over this any day of the week.






EDIT:

GAME CHANGER*

I just checked nettalk's site, it seems they have increased their prices, the 29$ used to be for 2 years of service.

In that case this would make the refurbed ooma a better deal after all.

I'm still not thrilled about them charging 10$ plus minutes on their smartphone apps.
Thats kinda ridiculous. Oh well, maybe this will change soon.

[quote postid="4401712" user="unksol"]Yes. Just disconnect the main line from the outside box or split point, plug this into a jack, and all your phones jacks should work with it.assuming your wiring. Is good. that's really its selling point in my opinion, if you don't need a whole house phone system thee are much cheaper voip options[/quote

Of course, if you get DSL from your phone company you are not going to be able to disconnect. In that case, it seems that you need a phone set with several satellite hand sets to be able to use this Ooma. If not, it seems that you can only connect one phone unless you want to run a long line to some other room. Correct?

stupido wrote:Major ice storm in Lexington a few years ago. I had no power for two weeks. Many of the cell sites went down including the one near my house. I restrung my land line and twisted the wires together and had my phone back. No cell, no power but I did have analog phone.

If you dont have any power for two weeks, who gives a Battlefield Earth (2000) about having a landline? Your town was blasted to sticks. What good is just a phone. Nothing. You're still living in the Land of Oz, get back to reality where landlines have near 0 purpose. Just like a T1, good for phone trunks, thats about it.