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Ooma Basic on Ooma Telo. Cost of the Telo was $100 after rebate, and has paid itself off many times over. member for 13.2 years, 5 visits, last login: 6.2 years ago updated 6.2 years ago
September 20, 2017 - Ooma box crapper out last week. Outgoing audio has been a problem for the last year and Ooma unable to do anything about it. They wanted me to pay $40 for a new box. I said no thanks and decided to port the number to CallCentric. When I went to cancel, and canceling the service is difficult as they don't want you to go, suddenly they could send me a new box free. Sorry, too late, I ported the number away. Also, the spam filter was not working as well as it did. Telemarketers have come up with new ways to get around the filter. However, with the CallCentric call treatments, I can defeat the new methods telemarketers are using. October 19, 2016 - Ooma is still working great. Nothing has changed still I started using them. Still highly recommended. I purchased my Ooma Telo from Woot (now owned by Amazon) as a refurbished unit for $99.00. Still has a one year warranty. At the time I was paying Time Warner $30 a month for our home phone and $34 a month for a second line for home office. The Time Warner monthly bill with cable and Internet went from about $120 a month to $250 in just four years for the same Cable TV, Internet, and Phone. So I was looking to cut what I was spending. So I connected the Ooma. Took about 15 minutes max to install and get it up and running by registering it on the Ooma website. After a few days of testing call quality, I submitted my porting order to port the home number to Ooma. Took Ooma only 8 days to get the port from Time Warner. Now I have to tell you that my wife always liked retrieving voice mails using a "box" of some sort. She never like having to retrieve her voice mails using the phone. Why, I don't know and cannot figure it out. Anyway, with the Ooma box she has her "box" that she can press a button and listen to her voice mails. You can still retrieve voice messages using a phone and they will also be emailed to you as an mp3 file. I like that. Now what I really list is how Ooma can filter out SPAM phone calls. They have a built-in community blacklist of telemarketers and the like. You can check the box on the Ooma website to use this AND you can specify what you want to do with those calls. You can send them to voice mail, just let the phone ring and never answer...or, and this is really great, you can have Ooma play the caller a "phone disconnected" message...gotta love that one. AND, you can also have your own blacklist if the spamming caller is not on the Ooma, community list, you can add it yourself to your own list. The Premier Service adds things like a free second number, and second line if you have a $59 Ooma phone that will pair with the Ooma Telo. BTW, you can have up to four Ooma phones/wireless jacks that pair with the Telo and this is with standard or Premier. You can even add more numbers for an extra charge beyond the two. Premier also adds free calling to Canada (not important to me), three-way conferencing, caller name along with the phone number on caller ID, Community Blacklist and Personal Blacklist (forgot that this is only with Premier, which is worth the $9.95 a month extra just for this feature), call screening (you can listen to the caller leaving a voice mail and if it is someone you want to talk to, you can just pick up the phone and talk), a back-up number (if your Internet connection goes out, Ooma will forward your calls to another number like your cell phone, and more features that you can discover by going to the Ooma website. I think it is still pretty important to have a phone at home. I know most people are just relying on cell phones now, but I hate chasing around for one cell phone at the house and the connection is not always reliable in the home. So for under $14 a month, I have a really robust phone system now. If you really want just a basic no frills phone, then fore go the Premier Service for just basic calling and pay the 911 fees and taxes which are usually under $4 a month. Personally, I think the Premier Service is more than worth and make Ooma a real nice home communication tool. Oh, and it will integrate with Google Voice. So I just ordered another Ooma Telo for my home office. This time instead of porting that number to Ooma, I first ported it to T-Mobile (you have to do this since Google cannot port from anyone but a mobile carrier), then port to Google Voice. Then Google Voice can integrate with Ooma. ...and one more thing. My home Ooma Telo is connected wireless to the router. You can buy a wireless device for $49 that plugs into the back of the Telo. That way the Telo can be located anywhere in the house. member for 17.6 years, 1966 visits, last login: 22 days ago updated 6.5 years ago
First got Ooma in 2012.... The Ooma forum is very good first line support and circumvents the need for many customer service calls. As long as my Ooma telo holds out... I'm a happy camper. 2014: Update: I've had the Ooma for 2 years.. and recently (February, 2014) I think Verizon's been messing with their customers because there was some bad voip quality during the month of February. In a few weeks it cleared, but I was annoyed. During the same time I had limited ability to stream video. Maybe I should have called Verizon also to complain but I was too busy working. I still think Ooma is a good deal & the equipment has gotten cheaper. You can buy NEW units for $149 and often you might find deals as low as $99 for a new one. Maybe Ooma will make a newer VOIP box soon. This current one seems outdated by current technology standards. Ooma also has a referral program where you will get Amazon gift cards as a reward. That puts Ooma well below other VOIP services based on cost alone. 2/15 My Ooma telo is still going strong. They still haven't fixed the issue with being able to intercept calls that go to voicemail (ugh). Otherwise, I'm satisfied with the svc. 5/15 Ooma charges sales tax on their Pemier svc in a recent policy change $119.99 (+$8.31 in my case in addition to the $3 to $4 for the voip fees)-- making it less of a value. I would've thought the price of premier should go DOWN by now.. 8/16 Same old, same old. Shame since I hardly ever use home phone service and most calling goes over cell and/or voip wifi anyway. Still beats telco or cableco voip. 4/17 Bill creep! The Ooma taxes and fees "passed along" are rising! It was btw 3-4$ for monthly fees, now NY customers are in the mid $5 range! This is starting to make google voice look better and better with each and every price hike! One can understand that these fees were inevitable price grab by Federal, State and local entities, but that's no excuse for not lowering the price of premier svc over time to compensate at least a little.. Also some features that were standard without premier are now premier features such as voip calling and 1 or 2 others [an erosion of value] #Call_It_Like_I_See_it member for 19.9 years, 2735 visits, last login: 4.5 years ago updated 6.9 years ago
Update 1-8-2017 (sorry I did not want this service showing as a happy review. Happy with the call quality, not bogus billing) Well it's been a few months since I choose Ooma for their phone service, although the call quality is good I must caution any potential customers that you have to check your monthly credit card invoice carefully. Ooma now is placing bogus "sales taxes" on "Taxes" I called in about this and was told by three phone representatives that Ooma has a right to collect taxes. I pointed out you cannot charge sales tax on e911/911 surcharges. I referred to the NYS Tax Department where it states this. The company would not remove the bogus tax. Unfortunately I ported out to another VoIP service. So Ooma loses a customer over bogus taxes. I also recommend you do a chargeback (dispute) with your credit card company. It is also a good idea to place a block on Ooma from getting anymore money from you if you port out of their service. It is documented Ooma likes to continue charging your credit card after you leave them. It is a pity since the call quality was great. Hope my new provider is good. ***************************************************************************************************************** Well I was looking for a replacement VOIP service for NetTalk and my friend said he uses Ooma and it was a great phone service. So I trudged off to Best Buy and purchased the Ooma Telo for $107 and that came with a $50 credit for making international calls. So that makes it actually $57 for the device. I then opted for the Premiere service so I think another $130 so now it around $237 cash outlay. Take the $50 credit from that price it now brings it down to $187 However there will be a $4.45 per month taxes accessed so in a year it will cost around $55 Which is high considering it is $35 a year for Magic Jack and NetTalk so around $70 total. However NetTalk has been terrible with no support services so it was time to get rid of them. I may post a review of just how bad NetTalk has been. Now the Ooma installed very quickly, I picked two numbers to use until my port request is done from my NetTalk service. In any case it was free so I cannot complain. The calls are crystal clear, and the fax sending has been good just like NetTalk was. However the difference with Ooma is you have to dial a *99 before you dial the fax machine. It went through ok as a test, but I don't think my wife and I send more than three faxes a year so that is not a big issue. I like how you can set everything up through the Ooma web portal in a matter of minutes. And it even looks good on the desk. Nice blue color. Hopefully I can update my review after we use it for awhile. member for 23.8 years, 5022 visits, last login: a few hours ago updated 7.2 years ago
Update: September 1, 2015 Still pleased with Ooma. The only problems have been ISP related. Update: October 6, 2016 Still pleased with Ooma. I have had zero issues since the last update. member for 15 years, 3526 visits, last login: a few hours ago updated 7.4 years ago
I have Ooma Premier, and mainly for the Blocking Features which are fantastic because I almost get no Spam Calls. I have had Ooma for a while now, I use to have two Verizon lines and Ported one over with no problems. Ooma handled everything, Porting the number over and disconnecting my Service with Verizon. I have the basic single line Telo, which was very easy to set up they have OnLine instructions just plug the Telo into your Router, and plug in your Phone and you are Hot to Go. I have moved several times, and setting up the Phone has been easy and great, even used Call Forwarding to my Cell Phone. If you are looking for a VoIP that matches a Telco Land Line look no further. Really nothing more to add, I still Love my Ooma. Voice Quality is outstanding, and it is very reliable. You can't beat the cost, and the screening and Blocking are just unbeatable. If you need a Land Line, get an Ooma. member for 21.8 years, 6344 visits, last login: 1 day ago updated 7.6 years ago
Works well, occasionally have some weird glitches such as random messages on outgoing calls that the call may be recorded, or the call log on their web portal will occasionally quit working. Have had to reboot the device occasionally. The price is right, I get to keep my phone number, and 911 works as long as the power is on. Overall a good deal. member for 22.1 years, 2414 visits, last login: 3.3 years ago lodged 7.8 years ago
We were paying $35+ with Vonage for our phone service and then we heard about Ooma online and decided to jump ship after looking over reviews. We bough the Ooma Telo and got our number ported from Vonage within 2 weeks. Then we were up and running, call quality has been great and customer service has been excellent whenever we needed help regarding services or troubleshooting. We only pay state regulatory fees and have local and nationwide calling. International calling is an extra $10 for 1000 minutes or $15 for unlimited. We used to subscribe to unlimited international calling till T-Mobile roped us into their promotional international calling service for only +$10 for our entire cellular account of 4 lines. Overall Ooma at least in our experience has been just as good as Vonage in terms of call quality and customer service but at a much lower price. member for 8.2 years, 1348 visits, last login: 1.1 years ago updated 7.8 years ago
We have a Covad 3/768 DSL circuit through a reseller called Interlync. (Highly recommended! Read all their positive reviews on this site!) Our DSL service is a dry loop with NO dial-tone. I connected the Telo device directly to my DSL modem which is in Bridged Mode. So, the Telo device runs PPPoE. It, in turn, provides a private DHCP address to my WiFi router. So, nothing on my internal network changed, except the Internet setting on my WiFi router. Now, the Telo has pretty decent router functionality built-in. It supports port-forwarding, DMZ, but no UPnP. Not a problem. With my setup, VPN tunnels pass through the Telo no problem. You would figure that the double-NATting would pose problems. But, it does NOT. The router does not slow the connection down, either. My only gripe is that the router's online help is not uptodate and hard to find on Ooma's website. For most people, the device really IS plug & play. But, for people with slower DSL circuits, I feel they should make the Telo documentation easier to find so that people can configure it for PPPoE and make other adjustments. Voice quality is very good. Almost cannot tell it is VoIP! Even while uploading or downloading files, simultaneously, it does a very good job prioritizing voice packets. I think it uses some ridiculously low amount of bandwidth, around 200k, for calls. That's my estimate. So, even those with 384k upload speeds should have no problems. The Android app works well. It actually sounds better than using my cellphone to make a cell call! If you have WiFi, even better. No minutes. No data. If you have an unlimited data plan, even better. Normally, the service is free. You just pay whatever taxes and government fees, which is a few dollars per month. I decided to subscribe to the Premier Plan and International Calling plan. I suggest subscribing to the Premier Plan. The extra features are worth it. You can also choose a free number port if you do so, as of this writing. Customer service is very good. I chat with them and they are always very helpful. I am porting my number over to it. It should take about 3 days. I'll update this review on how the number porting went. Update: Our number ported in a few days. Our home phone works normally. Update: The HD2 handsets add amazing features to the service. For example, you can actually listen to a voicemail message as someone is leaving it. And, you can take the call, if you want to. They also allow you to access a second line if you want to make a call and someone else is already is on a call. The second call does not affect voice quality at all! My only complaint is that the speakerphone audio is a bit distorted. member for 22 years, 464 visits, last login: 177 days ago updated 7.8 years ago
Have had the service for 4 years now and its been great. Can't beat the price of just paying for taxes! The initial setup costs a bit but you quickly recover those costs when service is roughly just 4$ a month and premier is around 15$ with tax. Support can be a hit or miss when you talk to them but for 4$ a month, i am not expecting red carpet experience. Once your enrolled in Premier you need to contact them to remove the feature which i feel is unnecessary and theres no removing the voicemail option at all. Which the website should have the option for both. We have a home office and faxing on occasion can be a chore, sometimes having to try 3-4x before a 1 page document will send. With premier it offers redundancy so document sends on first try. When we first got the service the number port took between 2 and 3 weeks from vonage which was inconvenient but not awful. Overall its a fantastic service once we got setup with solid reliability and clear calls. Did i mention cheap? Just 4$ a month! We used the service with 2.5 meg dsl and calls sometimes would be distorted but since we got faster connection no distortion. Very pleased with the system so far. Premier offers number blocking and host of other features which makes the 10$ for that even a decent value as well. With standard free service you get caller id with number only but can add a name in the online address book. Other than those few things, I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to save $$$. member for 7.9 years, 130 visits, last login: 6.5 years ago lodged 7.9 years ago
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