Review by Studly 
UPDATED: 36 days ago
member for 2.9 years, 34 visits, last login: 5 days ago
 Lakeville,Dakota,MN
 $16 per month
 about 1 days
 "Reliable network, pretty good call quality, good control panel"
 "there's a long wait for some area codes & voice delay on calls"
 "This is the best of the 4 VOIP services I've tried"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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10/19 update
Since my last update, I've since learned that if new users buy the older Hub and Scout system, rather than the new Telo unit, you'll still get basic voice mail for free, without having to order Premier service, and won't have to pay the $12 annual regulatory fees. The new Telo unit is not getting very good reviews, especially with the new higher rates and less features included in the basic services.
Stores are still selling the Ooma Hub and Scout system, so my advice to new users who don't need all the extra features is to get the older system, save money and you'll still get basic voice mail for free (they charge extra for enhanced VM).
See »www.ooma.com/legal/rates for a comparison of rates between the older and new Ooma systems.
10/2/09 update
Ooma just made MAJOR CHANGES to their prices and terms of service yesterday, and it's no longer as good of deal for new customers (existing customers are grandfathered in). There are many new fees and price increases, and they are trying to get more people to sign up for and pay for Premier service by making voice mail only available if you pay extra for Premier service.
If people wondered how Ooma would make money with their original pricing structure, now we know ... they weren't planning on keeping it forever. Probably wanted to originally give a good deal and get a lot of customers to pay large upfront costs (buying the Ooma equipment) to cover the company's start-up costs, and then they must have planned to change the pricing structure eventually so they make more money.
Anyway, to update my review, I have had the service for about 6 months now and am very happy with it. Only had two outages that I know about, and one could have been my ISP's fault. So the service has been very dependable. My only complaint is the same as I mentioned earlier: that on the majority of phone calls, and especially when talking to people who are on a cell phone, there is an annoying voice delay, which sometimes leads to both parties talking over each other. That hasn't gotten any better, but I guess I've learned to live with it.
One major problem I had with support was when I got both lines set up and they had my outgoing Caller ID wrong on the lines. After about 4-5 calls over many weeks of talking to various support people who all promised to write up a ticket and get it fixed, it never got fixed until we called and asked for a supervisor. Then the supervisor finally took care of it. I found that many of the earlier support people never made out a repair ticket for it, so if you ever call support, get a ticket # so you can call back and refer to it. If your problem hasn't been resolved after a couple calls, be sure to ask for a support supervisor.
All in all, I'm pleased with my Ooma service. I'm just glad I got in on the original pricing deal. I was encouraging a relative to get Ooma service, but will not anymore because of the new terms and prices that require you to get Premier service if you want Voice Mail. Some people just want Voice Mail but don't want all the other features that come with Premier. Ooma may still be a good deal for some, but probably not for those people who just want basic phone service and voice mail.
5/11/09 update
I had my number ported over. They give you the choice of submitting your paperwork by e-mail or fax. I did it by e-mail. Big mistake! After 10 days of not hearing anything back, I called, and they claimed they didn't receive it. Of course, this is the company who reviewers previously said does not respond to e-mail technical support requests (even though they say you can email them your tech support inquiries), so I guess I should have known that their porting dept. doesn't respond to email at all. So after I called their porting dept. and they said they didn't receive my paperwork, I faxed everything to them. After that, my porting went smoothly, took about 3 wks from when I faxed it. So my recommendation to others is to not email Ooma anything ... they'll say they never rec'd it.
Otherwise service has been good. Haven't noticed any outages since my last entry, about a month ago. Tech support now usually answers within a couple minutes of being on hold ... much better than it used to be. I've had mixed success with tech support -- depends on who you get. Some are good at fixing problems and following up, others are worthless. For instance, my outgoing caller ID was wrong and my blacklisting wasn't working consistently (some blacklisted numbers were still getting through) and the tech support guy couldn't fix either. He said he was sending the Caller ID issue to provisioning, but nothing got corrected. For the blacklisting problem, he had me recheck and resubmit the blacklisting options on Ooma's control panel (the Lounge) and said that should fix it, but it didn't.
Overall, though, things are good with Ooma. the minor problems are worth the savings.
4/14/09 update
I experienced their first outage yesterday, which lasted for most of the afternoon. According to their support forums, it looked like it affected a large portion of the country, if not all subscribers. When my service was down, calls went to Voice Mail. However, you also could not log into your control panel to change your settings (such as setting Multi Ring so calls go to other phones). On the forums, people said they couldn't call into support, neither, although I didn't try that. I suppose their support people are using Ooma lines as well.
Other call issues: I think I'm just getting more sensitive to this voice delay because I'm listening for it and noticing it on the majority of calls. It's really noticeable when talking to people who are on a cell phone, but is still noticeable when talking to people on most landlines, all over the country, and really noticeable when talking to Ooma support, probably because they're using Ooma too. There's always a noticeable pause (more than their should be) when you end a sentence, before the other person hears it and talks back. Most people may not notice this, but I do and I wish they could fix it because it is annoying and does lead to both people occasionally talking over each other. However, I've noticed this on all VOIP services I've tried in the past. My latency and VOIP quality tests I've run show there should be no problems, so it must just be inherent to VOIP lines. It's just something you have to get used to, I guess. But this pause is distracting when talking on the phone and if a VOIP provider could figure out how to eliminate this, I'd switch to that provider, if it was similarly priced.
Also, I signed up for Premier service and began the process of porting my number. This leads to another negative at Ooma: they don't have numbers available in all area codes. For the 2nd line, I'm looking for a number in the heavily populated 952 area code (suburban Minneapolis) and they don't have one, and support tells me it'll be a month before they get some more numbers in that area code. I think a provider as big as Ooma should really offer a better selection of numbers in all area codes, and at the very least, all of the heavily populated ones.
Overall, I'm still happy with Ooma, but am discovering a few more of its shortcomings!
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4/2/09 Update
The last couple days I've noticed a voice delay in Ooma when calling various people on cell phones, and occassionally when talking with people who are using landlines, in various parts of the country. Because of that, I changed my rating for "Call Quality" to 4 stars instead of the 5 that I gave them previously. When talking to someone, there's a noticable pause before you can hear what they say back. This leads to talking over each other. Hope this is just a temporary glitch with Ooma. Today it's better.
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ORIGINAL REVIEW
A couple years ago I tried SunRocket, but cancelled during the 30 day trial due to the bad call quality, a couple months before they went out of business. Then I tried MagicJack last year, returned that, and tried Voipo last month, but had issues there (see my review in that category) and cancelled during my trial.
Now, after one week of trying Ooma, my early impressions are that I think it is the best of all the VOIP providers I've tried, and is almost as good as a landline in quality and ease of use, and probably better, when price is factored in.
I bought my Ooma equipment at Best Buy. It's easy to set up and use. Surprisingly, when I was setting up my service, they didn't have any numbers available in my 952 area code, which is a heavily populated area code in suburban Minneapolis. I took a temporary # in a neighboring area code, but had to wait a few days and one became available in my area code, so I finally got one. But they really should have a better supply of phone numbers in various area codes, especially well populated ones.
I read reviews about Ooma's horrendous wait times for support, so I braced for the worst when i had to call them about the area code problem. My wait times when calling support over the past week have averaged about 20-25 minutes, so it sounds like maybe it's improving compared to earlier reviews. But of course that could still be better.
Ooma has a nice website with lots of documentation and a good forum. I recommend trying to get answers to your questions in the forum before calling support.
Call quality has been very good so far. On just one call, I heard echo, but that only lasted the first 5 seconds of the call. There was also one call where I noticed a voice delay, but that was with a person on a cell phone, so I don't know whose network was at fault. All the other calls I've made and received were as good as a landline in sound quality.
The Ooma devices (the hub and the scout) that your phone plugs into have a nice feature in that they have a blue light that is on as long as you're connected to the Ooma network. If the network is down, your ISP is down, or you have done something wrong on your end in connecting the devices, the blue light will turn red, and then you know you can't make or receive calls. Since that light is on all the time on the devices, either red or blue, you always know the status of your Ooma phone line and whether it's working or not. In the week I've had service, it's never been down ... so reliability has been excellent so far.
I'll test this a bit longer, and if it keeps performing well, I will likely port my # to Ooma. So far this has been the best VOIP service of the 4 I've tried out. It's also easy to use, especially with the digital answering machine, and nice for those who aren't very tech savvy ... so for instance if you have elderly parents or grandparents, and can set it up for them, then they should be able use it without problems.
Of course, the biggest potential downfall to this service is that it is a new company and you never know if they are going to pull a SunRocket, and go out of business, leaving you with no phone service and $250 worth of useless gadgets. In a recent article I read, the CEO said he expects the company will be profitable by the fourth quarter of 2009. Of course, they won't tell you if they are hurting financially because they don't want that to impact sales. But if it stays in business, it could catch on big.
Some have wondered about the viability of Ooma's business model, but I don't see that as being a problem. They are getting their subscribers to pay big bucks up front, so they can pay for what must be huge business start up costs. And then, many subscribers will go on to buy the premium service for another $99 a year, and others will be paying for international calls.
They'll probably count on people upgrading their Ooma equipment to something newer and better with more features, every couple years, as well. And if they still aren't making money, they can always start charging new customers a monthly fee (no longer offering a free service option), but hopefully they'll let people with the older devices continue with the free option for as long as their equipment lasts. So just because they are offering free service now, doesn't mean they will when they issue their future generations of Ooma devices.
Followup comments:  pandora
Premium
join:2001-06-01
Outland |  Question about monthly cost?
| |
|  | Studly
join:2006-12-06
Lakeville, MN
 ·ooma
·VOIPo
| Re: Question about monthly cost? I figured that if your original equipment 9which you can buy on Amazon for about $200) lasts 2 years, then that averages to about $8 month, and if you order the premier service at the annual rate, that adds on another $8 per month. So that's how I came up with $16 per month. | |
| | | pandora
Premium
join:2001-06-01
Outland | Re: Question about monthly cost? | |
| | | | Studly
join:2006-12-06
Lakeville, MN
·ooma
·VOIPo
| Re: Question about monthly cost? Yes, I have Premier so I can get the second line, and there are some features, such as listening to your voice mail (live) while someone is leaving you a message, blacklisting certain callers, etc., which is only available in Premier service. Once article I read about Ooma says 25% of its subscribers are oredering the Premier option, so you're right ... the majority don't order it. | |
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OOMA
@charter.com | Call Quality is good for me 10mb connection and OOma sounds great. But they are down right now on 4-13-09, other than that they are a greta value and buy. | |
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OomaUser
@comcast.net
| No voice delay I just got the Telo and have been using it for a day. Voice quality is very good (using it with a DECT 6 wireless handset). No delay. Both parties can clearly hear each other when talking at the same time.
Only issue I have is I cannot yet receive calls (PSTNs doing yet know how to route to my number  ). Support ticket opened (have ticket number).
Even with this issue, I give the service two thumbs up. Basic voice mail is now again included with the Telo. The Premier service allows one to have a copy of the message sent and attached to an e-mail. Cool enough feature to pay for. International rates are only average though... | |
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