One of the big variables for how the service works seems to be distance from their servers; this was told to me by the Ooma rep who admitted there was no way to reduce the sound lag that plagues mine. There is a significant delay that results in "stepping all over" each other on a call. Sometimes the lag morphs into a sort of repeating echo that forces me to end the call because I can't understand the caller.

People I call often complain that the sound quality is equivalent to a bad cell phone connection.

There have been a couple nationwide outages that meant no one's Ooma service worked for more than a day (one just a couple months ago). There are not infrequent periods when everything seems to be fine, but it won't place outgoing calls. Other times, it sends incoming calls directly to voice mail without even ringing.

I keep it because it's cheap and I have a conventional land line for work, which I am able to use as my substitute phone when Ooma isn't working. Spend some time reading their forums, though; it's a LONG way from a perfected technology for a LOT of users.

Nperry302 wrote:Do you have to pay anything or use it a minimum amount in order to get and keep a phone number?

Its about $4.00 a month.

OK - I have a coupla questions:

1. Can I keep my current phone number?
B. Can I make calls through this while traveling using a sip phone?

I'm amazed at all the positive reviews! I honestly had nothing but a horrible time getting the Ooma Telo to work at my house. I have:

Time Warner DOCSIS 3.0, 50 Mbit service
Netgear N600 router, dual channel
Panasonic 5Ghz wireless phones, POTS system
At the time, an Ooma Telo VoIP box (now Vonage)

The issues I had, consistently were:

Skipping, broken audio during phone calls
Calls where I could hear the other person, but they could not hear me
Every few calls a horrible screeching noise or loud glitch
Calls that would sound like 'a tin can' .. high frequencies only

To be fair, When I called Ooma tech support they were very responsive, and even replaced my unit quickly and without any drama. My number was ported in only three days. However, in the end it's about being able to make and take phone calls without any difference, and it was the service that was failing me.

Perhaps things have changed.. I was an early adopter, but I won't touch the Ooma service again.

dbcooper wrote:OK - I have a coupla questions:

1. Can I keep my current phone number?
B. Can I make calls through this while traveling using a sip phone?

1. Check the website; you can enter your number and it will tell you if you can port it.

B. You can rig it so it connects with something like Google Voice to make it accessible on the road. It doesn't work that way routinely.

Love the service. Have it in 2 condos (seasonal rentals) and vacation home and could not be happier with service. I purchased another last Woot for my home.

Do you have questions about this product? I will not answer them, but the FAQs might! http://www.ooma.com/products/faqs

I was looking at this when it was on Sellout.woot and someone mentioned OBitalk in the comments - and I got that instead and I recommend it.

$50 for the OBitalk 110.

It can be set up with Google Voice # as well which is what I did.

Each OBitalk device has it's own "phone" number, so if other people have it you can dial directly to the device but since no one I know has one... Google Voice to the rescue!

I bought it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/OBi110-Service-Bridge-Telephone-Adapter/dp/B0045RMEPI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320851211&sr=8-1

I learned more about it here:
http://michigantelephone.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/review-of-the-obihai-obi110-voip-device-part-1-use-your-phone-with-google-voice-for-free-incoming-and-outgoing-calls/

and

http://michigantelephone.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/review-of-the-obihai-obi110-voip-device-part-2-the-obitalk-portal-documentation-and-using-the-device-as-an-fxo-port-with-asterisk/

And here is www.obihai.com

Usually, the trouble with Ooma is not the service. It's the clueless user who is too incompetent to set it up, or even follow instructions from tech support. In all fairness, tech support out sourced to the Philippines, and they generally read their suggestions from a 3 ring binder. But, once you get it working, it can save a lot of money over time. It's not quite as solid and reliable as traditional land lines. VoIP, in general, still can be a bit quirky. And Ooma will have growing pains, But, 98 percent of the time, you can't tell the difference between Ooma and your local phone service provider. I've been an Ooma user for two years or more. To me, the savings are worth the quirks and the occasional glitch.

Been wanting to make the switch, so I got one...

Disappointed I had to pay sales tax though...has Woot always done the government's dirty work for them, or is this something new? I'm in New York btw...

dbcooper wrote:OK - I have a coupla questions:

1. Can I keep my current phone number?
B. Can I make calls through this while traveling using a sip phone?

Question 1. yes 39.99
Question 2. I don't believe so. (I could be wrong)

martinbogo wrote:

Perhaps things have changed.. I was an early adopter, but I won't touch the Ooma service again.

Not here they haven't. I have kept the Telo, but I wouldn't even consider replacing it if it quit altogether.

Have had Ooma for over a year. No problems whatsoever.

I bought this last year from woot and very happy with the product so far. just 3 dollars in taxes a month and all of that free long distance.. love it

Any problems using Ooma with Verizon DSL service? Reason I ask is I am a landline Verizon customer with basic plan (about $12/mo) local calls only and want to replace this service with Ooma. The Verizon DSL plan is about $35/mo.

I bought one a couple moths back from woot. Works great! Love the service and the customer service is great. Love it more than Vonage.

nodoze wrote:Usually, the trouble with Ooma is not the service. It's the clueless user who is too incompetent to set it up, or even follow instructions from tech support. In all fairness, tech support out sourced to the Philippines, and they generally read their suggestions from a 3 ring binder. But, once you get it working, it can save a lot of money over time. It's not quite as solid and reliable as traditional land lines. VoIP, in general, still can be a bit quirky. And Ooma will have growing pains, But, 98 percent of the time, you can't tell the difference between Ooma and your local phone service provider. I've been an Ooma user for two years or more. To me, the savings are worth the quirks and the occasional glitch.

You're using "usually" and "clueless user" pretty lightly here. After I followed every instruction and suggestion from Ooma CS, they themselves admitted that the problems I was having were known issues; they even sent me that in writing, saying they hoped users would continue to report these issues so they could continue to improve service. Which, as far as I can tell, they haven't done.

aderyn wrote:... the Ooma rep who admitted there was no way to reduce the sound lag that plagues mine. There is a significant delay that results in "stepping all over" each other on a call.

The lag you hear is usually only noticeable when you're talking to someone on a cell phone, because you have compression/decompression on both ends, and that takes time. It's not noticeable if you're talking to another Ooma user or someone on a traditional land line.

KCFly wrote:We've been using OOMA for the past couple of years. It has been as reliable as AT&T ever was for us. I would recommend it!

Absolutely! (experience: ex Vonage early adopter)

Ooma rocks. My bill is $3.00 month for local and long distance (manditory tax, fed & state).

Works great, had it for 1 1/2 years.

Linked it to a 5 handset panasonic system.

GREAT!

ArrSea wrote:I was looking at this when it was on Sellout.woot and someone mentioned OBitalk in the comments - and I got that instead and I recommend it.

$50 for the OBitalk 110.

It can be set up with Google Voice # as well which is what I did.

Each OBitalk device has it's own "phone" number, so if other people have it you can dial directly to the device but since no one I know has one... Google Voice to the rescue!

I bought it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/OBi110-Service-Bridge-Telephone-Adapter/dp/B0045RMEPI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320851211&sr=8-1

I learned more about it here:
http://michigantelephone.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/review-of-the-obihai-obi110-voip-device-part-1-use-your-phone-with-google-voice-for-free-incoming-and-outgoing-calls/

and

http://michigantelephone.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/review-of-the-obihai-obi110-voip-device-part-2-the-obitalk-portal-documentation-and-using-the-device-as-an-fxo-port-with-asterisk/

And here is www.obihai.com

The obi is great! I have 2 google voice numbers setup on it. I read on some reviews that it won't always ring - I found that to only happen when I'm signed into gmail somewhere else (GV rings to google talk). I just setup separate gmail accounts for GV and it has been fine.

I bought one of these, (before I saw them on woot) and it's been awesome. I've gotten a lot of comments on how great the voice quality is over the service we had before, and we haven't had any issues with dropped calls etc.

It's been pretty solid. In theory the service is free if you drop everything but just the phone line, but for $10 a month you get a ton of features, so we've kept the intro package after our free trial.

If you're paying more than $10 for a land line (i'm looking at you baby boomers) and you can hook up a wireless router, you could buy this and be down to $10 a month easily.

Love it.

Is the number remaining bar jumping around on anyone else today? was next to none left, then the bar shows barely any sold.

nodoze wrote:The lag you hear is usually only noticeable when you're talking to someone on a cell phone, because you have compression/decompression on both ends, and that takes time. It's not noticeable if you're talking to another Ooma user or someone on a traditional land line.

Interesting. I'll test it with my son's land line later today.

Ooma rocks. I have it, I love it. We pay about $3 a month in mandatory taxes. That's it for nationwide service.

For as long as this company lasts, this thing works very well. we've never had any major issues at all and certainly none that couldn't be fixed with a quick reboot. I've tried Magic Jack and other options and this one is by far the best bang for the buck. If you're even considering this, get it.

I have the old Ooma Hub, and 3 years later it's still chugging along, and still giving me no phone bill to pay. I'd love to have the updated Ooma Telo, but the reason I got the Ooma is because I'm cheap, which is why I'm not buying the updated version when the old one still works, and is also why I'm on Woot!

Hurry sellout before anyone notices the type-o because who likes to maker internation calls anyway...

troller11 wrote:Ooma rocks. I have it, I love it. We pay about $3 a month in mandatory taxes. That's it for nationwide service.

I got in before they started charging tax. Not sure how that happened, but, I'm not complaining.

Maybe the Woot! staff is trying to limit the server crashes when the Bountiful Overflowing Cornucopia comes up by fooling people into thinking that the WootOff was over.

[quote postid="4707162" user="alcimedes"

It's been pretty solid. In theory the service is free if you drop everything but just the phone line, but for $10 a month you get a ton of features, so we've kept the intro package after our free trial.
[/quote]

The service as such is free but many states insist on charging tax for it each month, so in effect it is not free. I pay just under $4 a month for the basic service. The features with the $10 Premier package are definitely nice, though.

dbcooper wrote:OK - I have a coupla questions:

1. Can I keep my current phone number?
B. Can I make calls through this while traveling using a sip phone?

1). has been answered. There is a charge to port your number, if you want teh basic free service.

2) The question is tough to answer, as I am not sure what you want to do.

When I traveled (for weeks at a time), I took my Ooma unit with me, plugged it in and, even though I was in various international locations, I could plug an analog phone in and make free calls (... including US based 800#'s, which rocks.)

So, even though OOMA ois a sip solution, you only need an analog phone to make it function.

If your question is: Hey, I have a SIP phone, and OOMA is SIP service... will that work? Then, NO.

You need the Analog Telephony adapter for service... Which is what an OOMA Telo is.

Now, if you have a mobile device and wish to load the ooma client to make calls... That will work. (see the OOMA website for requirements)

Nperry302 wrote:Is the number remaining bar jumping around on anyone else today? was next to none left, then the bar shows barely any sold.

Yup. Same here. If they're left unsold for too long they start to breed. Hurry up and buy them or we'll be overrun by Oomlets

The first time I heard Adelle sing "Rumor Has It", I thought for sure she was singing "Ooma has it..."

Now you too are infected forever! Bwahahaha.

Got one on the last go around. Got here quick, took 5 seconds to plug it in (in place of my $35/mo Vonage box). Number port took about 1 1/2 weeks (can be up to a month...so be aware that you may have to keep your old service for a while). Very happy.

Got it. Love it. Get it.

Cell coverage stinks at our cottage, so we got one of these. Have a delay on conversations that's annoying, but at least we can hear and be heard, call anywhere in the US for free. Costs $3.47 a month for us here in Michigan.

YES YES YES!!! Finally their back! Woo hoo… Thank you WOOT!
Friend of mine has had ooma from back when they were 100% free, way early adopter!

I call him regularly and if he hadn't told me, I would have never known it was through an ooma!

Now I can save $60+ a month on our phone bill, and on my mom's phone bill!

These regularly go for $200 everywhere so to me this is a great deal!

More great deals like this please, woot!

yay

WootWatcher on my Droid says they are gone. Woot website says different...

Cool! I can connect this refurb to my crappy internet service and have crappy phone service for free. In for none!!!