Ooma and Ooma handsets

[bizlady]

We bought Ooma in May, ported our number and cut the cord. LOVE it! The app on the iphone is nice too- if you have Wi-Fi, you make free calls without using your minutes!

 

[Chuckanut]

I have no business connection with any of these organizations. But, I do use Ooma and like it. Here's the lowest price I have seen. The unit is reconditioned.

Ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone System

 

[tmm99]

I don't have Ooma. I have Vonage, and I just researched and found out that Vonage would be cheaper than Ooma for me since Vonage doesn't charge for international calls (Oooma does) and the Vonage monthly charge for me would be lower than a Ooma monthly charge.

 

[rrppve]

I've used both Vonage and Ooma and have found the voice quality to be higher on Vonage. Make sure you have a high bandwidth internet connection, both upstream and downstream, before making the switch otherwise the voice quality will really suffer.


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[ERD50]

I've used both Vonage and Ooma and have found the voice quality to be higher on Vonage. Make sure you have a high bandwidth internet connection, both upstream and downstream, before making the switch otherwise the voice quality will really suffer.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

That is not really the case. VOIP doesn't require much bandwidth at all. Only 64 kbps.

Meet VoIP bandwidth requirements without crippling your network performance - TechRepublic

G.711 64 kbps 4.1 This is the most universally supported codec used in IP telephony. This narrowband codec supports frequencies in the 300 to 3,400 hertz range and is uncompressed. Although the quality is very good, it consumes a lot of bandwidth.

When they say 'a lot', they mean relative to the other codecs that perform more compression, or limit the audio quality further. For most of us, 64kbps is not 'a lot'.

But you need low latency and low jitter. Sometimes these are poor even when the speed is high.

Here's a site for testing VOIP:

VoIP Speed, Bandwidth, and Jitter Test | WhichVoIP.com

Higher BW comes into play if someone is downloading/streaming while you are on a call.

-ERD50

 

[rrppve]

Try an Ooma call with 64kbps and you will be very disappointed with the results. They even claim you need a minimum of 200-300, which is really not enough for satisfactory results.


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[ERD50]

Try an Ooma call with 64kbps and you will be very disappointed with the results. They even claim you need a minimum of 200-300, which is really not enough for satisfactory results.


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Sure, you need to provide some overhead, but 64kbps is technically all the VOIP will consume.

The point is, most people have plenty of 'speed', that is not usually the limiting factor. At one point when I was getting 1Mbps speeds down and ~ 300mbps up, and my VOIP was sometimes terrible, because I was getting high jitter (I'm on a fixed wireless connection). They found an interference problem, fixed that, and my speeds didn't change, but the jitter dropped to something much better. Calls were clear then w/o breakup.

Since then they've got me on a 3Mbps down, 1Mbps up. No real difference to the calls.

They should run the test I linked (or other VOIP quality test - not just a speed test), it will test ALL the factors that affect VOIP, and give a MOS score. Speed is only one factor, and not an issue for most people.

-ERD50

 

[NW-Bound]

My home phone is on Ooma now. After years of vacillation telling myself I need to do a bit more research to see what VOIP service is the best while keeping paying $30/month for the land line, I ordered the Telo box for $109, installed it, and was done with it.

I did not buy their WiFi stick because of some problems I read on the Web. And it so happened that the local electronic store had a WiFi bridge (WiFi to RJ45 Ethernet) on sale for $7, so I bought that instead, figuring that if the bridge does not work with Ooma Telo I can use it for something else. It works OK.

I evaluated the delay time by making calls to it from my cell phone, and also from the existing land-line phone which is not really POTs but internet based (service offered by local cable company). The delay with the cell phone is perceptibly less, but still quite apparent. What I really want to do is a comparison between POTS-to-POTS vs. POTS-Telo, but I do not have a POTS line, left alone two.

I should try a hardwired connection between the Ooma Telo and the router to see if elimination of the WiFi hop helps, but that would put the Telo at an inconvenient location. I may try that anyway to see if there's any difference.

After requesting the phone number porting via Ooma's Web site, I was surprised to see that they did it in 3 days, instead of the 2 weeks that they promised.

I am still debating whether to pay the $10/month for premium service. The 2nd phone number is superfluous to us as we still have our cell phones, but the other features look nice to have, such as call forwarding, parallel ringing, or voice mail over the Internet, etc... However, the missus is in her frugal mode, and says we do not need it. I still worry that without support, they may just go belly up. They probably will raise some minimum charge in the future if it is needed to stay afloat than to close shop.

 

[braumeister]

I'm happy to pay the Ooma Premier charge for just two features: The "instant second line" which you'll need if you want to integrate it with your Google Voice, and the Personal Blacklist, which lets you block an unlimited number of phone numbers (basically every telemarketer/survey/political call that ever gets through). There are other valuable features, but these two make it worth at least $10/month to me.

 

[MBAustin]

+1 on the personal blacklist. We still get too darn many cr*p calls but a whole lot less than we used to.


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[nwsteve]

+1 on the personal blacklist. We still get too darn many cr*p calls but a whole lot less than we used to.


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+2
Ditto on the joy of putting cr*p calls like "This is "mary" from credit call services" in the dungeon of blocked calls.

I also find the second line of use if want to add a party to a call.
Nwsteve

 

[steelyman]

I'm finally finishing an out-of-state permanent move that has taken a year to accomplish completely.

I decided to try Ooma rather than traditional land line in the new location and to get it ready while still in the old. I didn't want to port my old phone number.

Amazon had a decent price on the Telo + wi-fi/bluetooth adapter so I bought that. Discover has a current (3Q 2015) 5% cashback offer on Amazon purchases, which lowered the equipment cost a little bit.

I just went wi-fi only from the start and the only stumble is that my home network is not "visible" (e.g., it doesn't show to devices, you have to know the name and password). I was able to fix that in the web setup process, but it wasn't obvious so I did the "support chat" thing for help.

Once set up, I was surprised at the clarity - no dropouts, tones, delays, etc.

The cost for me is tax ($4.x/mo). As a new subscriber, I have a free trial to Premium but if it keeps working so well after more experience, I'll pay the $9.99/mo for that. Overall, it's much less expensive than what AT&T was getting from me.

By the way, Ooma is yet another thing I first learned of right here at e-r.org.

 

[EastWest Gal]

Me too. We switched to Ooma two months ago. We're paying for premium for its national blacklist. No
more robocalls and very few sales calls of any kind. We like it very much.


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[pb4uski]

We've been using Ooma since mid 2011. Quite happy with it overall. In the times we have has call quality issues, it usually turned out to be an internet problem.

I had originally bought Premier because we needed two line when I was working. I'm rethinking that now that I am retired.

 

[tmm99]

I might move to Oona too. I have Vonage and Ooma will be cheaper (I will have to invest money on the equipment/number porting which will be paid in a little over a year due to the difference in cost..)

 

[steelyman]

Like all Ooma customers, I received an email about their recent IPO. I am so pleased with the product and performance that I bought a small amount (1 lot, 100 shares). It'll be fun to watch, of course I would like to see Zooma-Zooma but I don't care either way.

That is most definitely not a recommendation. Do what I say if you are tired of owning your money. I don't have the inflated ego required to post and promote stock blogs!