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 Review by scots 
Posted: 299 days ago
member for 9.9 years, 1934 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Raleigh,Wake,NC
 Contract price not specified.
 about 1 days
 "No more phone bill! Excellent voice quality."
 "None so far."
 "Great service, and can't beat the price."
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(ratings match consensus)
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I was previously with AT&T CallVantage VoIP service. Due to AT&T being stubborn and not letting me cancel only one of my two lines I had with them, I decided I'd port out the number that I wanted to keep and just cancel everything with them.
I had been looking at ooma for a while, and initially didn't go with them due to the high startup costs. You have to purchase the ooma equipment, and then after that there are no monthly fees. I believe when they first started it was something like $400 or $500 for the equipment, which was what kept me away from them. They've now dropped it down to $249.99, but I got it on sale for $199.99 from J&R with free shipping and no sales tax.
After the equipment cost, there are no other fees with ooma unless you want to subscribe to their Premier service ($12.99/month or $99/year) or make international calls. I did sign up a year of the Premier service. I was paying AT&T $50/month for VoIP service, so anything after 6 months with ooma becomes icing on the cake.
After you purchase/receive the ooma equipment from the retailer of your choice, you go to the ooma web site to register the MAC address of your equipment. The setup process on their web site couldn't be easier. After you've registered your equipment, selected your phone number, etc you connect the equipment following the included directions. From the time I opened the box to the time I had dial tone was probably 15 to 20 minutes. So far I haven't had any problems, and the voice quality has been excellent. Voice quality for me has been equal to or better than AT&T CallVantage.
They give you 90 days of their Premier service for free to try it out before you sign up for it. Premier service is not required if you don't want it, but it does add some nice features. Features included with Premier are a second phone line, 3-way calling, multi-ring (rings another phone number in addition to your ooma line), enhanced voicemail features, and privacy features among other things. Also, they are constantly adding new features to ooma and Premier customers get to try out the new features before non-Premier customers.
Porting a phone number in from another carrier costs $39.99, but if you sign up for one year of Premier service they waive the porting fee. Starting the porting process can now be accomplished on the ooma web site after you log into your account. Starting a port previously required calling in to ooma customer support. When I initiated the porting process I immediately received an e-mail with a form that I needed to fax in to ooma. 2 days after I faxed in the forms I received another e-mail stating that they had everything they needed to perform the port.
In addition to telephone and e-mail support, ooma also has support forums on their web site. Customers can help each other out, and ooma employees also frequent the forums to assist customers. ooma support went downhill for a short period around the holidays. They had a sudden huge influx of customers due to the sale price which overwhelmed them. They added some new support personnel to help with this. I haven't had to call in, but from what I've been reading in their support forums things have improved and support response time has improved to close to what it was before the holidays.
One other nice thing about ooma is that they are very open to suggestions from their customers as to what new features are added. They have a section in their online forums which is specifically for requesting new features. They try to add the most requested features first, and they do respond to feature requests in the forum with a timeframe as to when the feature will be available if they have that feature in the works.
Everything has been working great for me with ooma so far, and I hope it continues!
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