Ooma, anyone?

[RachelsMommie]

So I'm slashing our budget to the bone (bye-bye, cable!) and am looking at our home phone bill. For home phone with long distance and DSL, we're paying $90/month. I figured out that if we get the Ooma device with number transfer for $240, we could drop our home phone and go to DSL only for $30/month. Total savings, $60/month.

Anyone using Ooma or another VoIP device? We'd like to keep our current home number and use our current phones.

Thanks!
Kristi

 

[Mrs D]

So I'm slashing our budget to the bone (bye-bye, cable!) and am looking at our home phone bill. For home phone with long distance and DSL, we're paying $90/month. I figured out that if we get the Ooma device with number transfer for $240, we could drop our home phone and go to DSL only for $30/month. Total savings, $60/month.

Anyone using Ooma or another VoIP device? We'd like to keep our current home number and use our current phones.

Thanks!
Kristi

My neighbors have it. It sounds fine to me.

I use VOIPO.com. It's a voice over internet service which means if your power or cable go out you are without that phone (not a big deal if you have a cell - VOIPO can roll all calls over to your cell #). They give you a no charge Telephone Adaptor which plugs into a computer which has you cable internet (don't think it works with DSL). No special phones are needed.

You can either choose a monthly plan for $15 (plus $3 taxes) or you can pay for the year and it comes out to about $8 a month! There is no charge to port your existing phone number over.

We started with the monthly in case we didn't like it. It was great at first, then we started getting dropped calls. We put in a service ticket, and it did take a few tries to fix the problem but the tech support is AWESOME and they really do follow up. We no do annual payment and just recently took a special promo where we pre-paid for 2 years and got it down to $7 a month! The service works well for us so we are happy to sign up for that time and enjoy the savings!

HTH!

 

[DawnM]

We got Ooma in Dec. of 2009. We have very few complaints. It has dropped a call or two, but Vonage did that too, and Vonage was $33/month.

We paid $240 and bought it through Costco and got the number ported.

There is also an Ooma app for a smartphone or ipod touch and you can make calls though there and the caller ID will show up as your home number. Phone calls through that are 1.9 cents per min. Since I got $100 in free calls/international calls for signing up through Costco.com I am able to tap into that amount.

I have also used Ooma for international calls. My parents are often overseas (where I grew up) and my DH travels for work, and I travel some.....it has worked well.

Dawn

 

[melmel]

We've had ooma for probably a year and usually don't have a problem. We had vonage before this, and me have noticed a difference in the quality. I haven't had dropped calls but sometimes they just won't go through. However, I think that was a problem with our router, since we updated our firmware we haven't noticed this problem. But for free I can't really complain, and overall I'm happy with it.

 

[mydisneyobsession]

I really wish I could do this. We pay much more than I would like for our phone line through AT&T. But we have a monitored alarm, and it wouldn't work without a landline. Hopefully our alarm company will catch up with the technology, and we'll have more choices eventually!

 

[ShelsGoingToDisney]

We dropped our landline for Ooma last fall. Porting our number took longer than I expected but I think the problem was on the end of Cox Communications who had our landline account. Now we pay $3.47 per month and we've had no service problems at all. Unlimited long distance too. So far it's been a great deal for us!

 

[RachelsMommie]

We have a monitored alarm, too. When I called our alarm company, they said I could put a wireless notification device on the system that uses cell tower signals for $99 (one time charge). You may want to check into that.

 

[tjs198]

love Ooma - had it for a few years now, got in on the original one so i have no monthly fees at all - i hear the new one has a couple dollars a month fee.

i don't get anything out of this, but i did get an email from them saying it was product of the year and i can save friends $50 and free shipping on the unit, i can forward you the email if you want. PM me if interested.

 

[DawnM]

Why do you pay $3.47 per month?

We pay $11 in taxes per year.


Dawn

We dropped our landline for Ooma last fall. Porting our number took longer than I expected but I think the problem was on the end of Cox Communications who had our landline account. Now we pay $3.47 per month and we've had no service problems at all. Unlimited long distance too. So far it's been a great deal for us!

 

[mommycrawford]

love Ooma - had it for a few years now, got in on the original one so i have no monthly fees at all - i hear the new one has a couple dollars a month fee.

i don't get anything out of this, but i did get an email from them saying it was product of the year and i can save friends $50 and free shipping on the unit, i can forward you the email if you want. PM me if interested.

sending a pm

 

[mydisneyobsession]

We have a monitored alarm, too. When I called our alarm company, they said I could put a wireless notification device on the system that uses cell tower signals for $99 (one time charge). You may want to check into that.

My alarm company charges a monthly fee for the wireless notification system (that would negate my savings) in addition to the setup charge. It sounds like I have the wrong alarm company, too!

 

[wbh1964]

We have 8 phones in our home. Will this device allow us to continue to use all phones or only the one connected to our router?

 

[mrudman]

We just bought Ooma last week (thanks to reading about it on here, ), and think I'm really gonna love it! (still in process of porting our number, so really haven't been using it much so far).

Our phone bill was $27, so not bad, but now it'll just be $3.47 for the taxes each month,

Plus, I had really been wanting to get caller ID, but couldn't see paying almost $10/mo. additional for it, but now I'll have that as well!

And we did the number porting, so we could keep our own number. It won't actually be saving us any money for about 7 months ($199 for the ooma from best buy, $40 for number porting).. but after that time period is over, we'll be saving almost $25/month,

 

[mrudman]

We have 8 phones in our home. Will this device allow us to continue to use all phones or only the one connected to our router?

As far as I can tell, only the phones plugged in through the router will work... but we've had cordless phones where one is the "hub", so that's the one we plugged in, then the other phones (we have 3 others, so 4 total) run off of that hub, so they'll all work as well.

 

[melmel]

There is a way to have it run through the house. I'm not exactly sure how to do it. But basically you unhook the wire outside and the you plug the cord from the router into the wall instead of the phone. We've had ours set up this way since we switched to vonage about 5 years ago, so it can be done.

 

[rock_doctor]

For those of us who have the hub ooma will only guarantee free service for 3 yrs then we will have to pay the monthly fed taxes. If you have more then one phone in the house get a new phone one that comes with a base unit and then multiple stand alone phones that can be placed around the house. You can run a line to the ooma using a normal phone splitter for your alarm system. You only need to program in a pause before the alarm dials. Ours has been excellent and the sound quality is better then our land line but...and that is a big but... you need a minimum of 1mb per second down and it prefers 1.5mb. I have 15mb down so that is why mine has been so good. I totally recommend them to anybody.

 

[ShelsGoingToDisney]

Why do you pay $3.47 per month?

We pay $11 in taxes per year.


Dawn

It depends on where you live. If you go to the Ooma site and put in your zip code it will tell you what the FCC taxes will be. That is what it is for my zip. I never had an option to pay yearly. Maybe you are grandfathered into something?

 

[ShelsGoingToDisney]

For those of us who have the hub ooma will only guarantee free service for 3 yrs then we will have to pay the monthly fed taxes. If you have more then one phone in the house get a new phone one that comes with a base unit and then multiple stand alon phones that can be placed around the house. You can run a line to the ooma using a normal phone splitter for your alarm system. You only need to program in a pause before the alarm dials. Ours has been excellent and the sound quality is better then our land line but...and that is a big but... you need a minimum of 1mb per second down and it prefers 1.5mb. I have 15mb down so that is why mine has been so good. I totally recommend them to anybody.

That's the kid of phone we have. It's a Panasonic, the base sits in the kitchen hooked into the Ooma which is hooked into the network. We have another phone in the office, one upstairs, and one downstairs, so 4 total phones and they all work together.

 

[RachelsMommie]

We have that kind of phone, too. One base unit and 4 extra handsets that just require power only.

I thought it was funny that one of my younger co-workers (I'm 34, he's 25) told me that landlines are "SO 1995".

 

[DawnM]

I must be on an earlier plan because when I put in my zip it does show $3.47. Huh....

Dawn

It depends on where you live. If you go to the Ooma site and put in your zip code it will tell you what the FCC taxes will be. That is what it is for my zip. I never had an option to pay yearly. Maybe you are grandfathered into something?