My new Ooma voip works great on one phone but not on whole house phone wiring. Ooma support no help.

[John Galt III]

Bought an Ooma Telo box for voip on my landline phones. Did everything according to instructions. Great performance on the phone I plugged directly into the Telo box.

Then tried to connect it to the rest of the phones in the house. Landline phones. Supposed to work. Support at Ooma says it should work.

Old Verizon landline account is canceled, no dial tone on phones. I unplugged the rj11 plug from the NID box outside. Still have power to landline phones, buttons light up and make beeps. Can talk on the phones between rooms. Never had a problem with the phone wiring.

Ooma says if I plug the phone line coming out of the Ooma box into a phone jack on the wall, then the Ooma signal will propagate to the other phones in the house. But all I get is a 'fast busy' signal or a 'phone is off the hook' faster beeping.

So far, people are blaming my phone wiring, but what could be wrong with it? Why would my phone wiring defective? It has always worked normally in all rooms. It's from 1986.

Ooma said no rebooting was needed, but I rebooted the Telo box anyway, and it didn't help.

I know I could get a wireless Uniden style phone as a workaround, but would prefer to use my real phone lines.

Clues appreciated !

 

[FD1000]

You can call support at 1-866-939-6662.
I had Ooma years ago. I remember having an issue at first, but customer service resolved it quickly.
After a couple of years, I ditched Ooma — each of us has a cell phone now anyway.
BTW, Ooma has a 30-day money-back guarantee for most devices.

 

[Sunset]

I thought Ooma was dead. I have mine set up on a wireless phone that connects to the other phones in the house.

We still have a wired phone. So I'm no help to OP.

 

[calmloki]

I like simple: Try swapping your in-out line locations on you Ooma box. Had Ooma for years, loved it, but may finally give it up as cell phones really have proven their worth.

 

[gutterman]

Trying to understand this- "unplugged the rj11 plug from the NID box". Plug it back up and try it. If it's not that, then it's the wiring in your house. A person who does computer network wiring should be able to figure it out, or an electrician with the right gear

 

[CDRE]

I had a phone jack outlet go bad because no phone was plugged into it and over time, the jack corroded, causing problems throughout the house. If a phone had been plugged in, the low voltage would have prevented the corrosion. I bypassed this jack and it resolved the entire house problem.

I use a splitter from my Ooma Telo, one leg to a local phone and the other leg to the house. The rj11 from the telephone company in the NID box must be unplugged and the rj11 to the house must remain plugged in.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

I did not think folks still had a land line.

 

[John Galt III]

Problem solved. My bad. Sorry ! There were TWO rj11 plugs in the NID box, and I only noticed one, so only removed one, at first. I just removed the other one, and now the other phones work, just like Ooma said they would. I would like to invoke a 'senior moment' clause to excuse myself for this, if you will allow it ! Thanks for the efforts to help me.

 

[euro]

Mulligan granted!
I was just about to post that I have exactly the same setup as you (and had it for many years) and it has always worked flawlessly for me. True plug and play with Ooma Telo. Can't comment on tech support as I have never used any (knock on wood).

 

[rk911]

OP...if OOMA is similar to our Comcast VOIP phones you need to pull the TELCO connection at the interface box. The OOMA setup makes a casual reference to this.

When we switched ojr telco line from Illinois Bell to Comcast I followed their setup exactly. The Comcast modem/gateway was physically connected to a phone jack. That should've produced dial to all of the other jacks in the house...but didn't. After an unhelpful call to Comcast (is there any other kind?) I realized that the telco network was still connected to our home at the interface box outside the home. I pulled that RJ14 connector which disconnected the telco from the inside outlets and suddenly all of our phone outlets had Comcast dialtone. I bet the same is true for Ooma.

 

[John Galt III]

OP...if OOMA is similar to our Comcast VOIP phones you need to pull the TELCO connection at the interface box. The OOMA setup makes a casual reference to this.

When we switched ojr telco line from Illinois Bell to Comcast I followed their setup exactly. The Comcast modem/gateway was physically connected to a phone jack. That should've produced dial to all of the other jacks in the house...but didn't. After an unhelpful call to Comcast (is there any other kind?) I realized that the telco network was still connected to our home at the interface box outside the home. I pulled that RJ14 connector which disconnected the telco from the inside outlets and suddenly all of our phone outlets had Comcast dialtone. I bet the same is true for Ooma.

RK911, I fixed it. It was, as you said, the connections at the outside phone box. I had only noticed one connection there, and disconnected it, but there were actually TWO connections (guess I wasn't wearing my glasses). I removed the second connection and everything worked right then. Thanks.

 

[Texas Proud]

Did you buy the wired version or the wifi version?

I am thinking about buying the wifi version and have it downstairs... I want to get rid of Comcast and go to fiber but fiber does not do VOIP...

But if it does power the whole house then might not need it... but I do not know how many plugs on the wifi device of the new company..

 

[JoeWras]

I was going to reply but you found your problem. My suggestion was that there was no way you were disabled from the telco if you still had power on the phones. And, apparently you were not disconnected!

 

[skyking1]

he has those powered phones that can act as intercoms, no Telco needed.

 

[JoeWras]

Oh, powered phones. Fancy. Got it.

BTW, I use Google Voice with the polycom box, which is more or less not supported now. Running on borrowed time. I explicitly am not using powered phones so that my setup works during short power failures. I have my fiber termination, router, and VOIP box backed up. As long as the fiber works, I still have phone service for a while. It can come in handy during a panic.

 

[RetiredAndLovingIt]

Oh, powered phones. Fancy. Got it.

BTW, I use Google Voice with the polycom box, which is more or less not supported now. Running on borrowed time. I explicitly am not using powered phones so that my setup works during short power failures. I have my fiber termination, router, and VOIP box backed up. As long as the fiber works, I still have phone service for a while. It can come in handy during a panic.

+1, still using my Google Voice home number with the OBi box. I got it in 2013 and have saved so much with this totally free option. I don't use it as much now, using my cellphone for most calls but if I don't answer the cell then the family calls the GV home number and it rings on all the house phones and the cellphone. I have both cordless phones and plug in ones as well and I'll sure miss it when it finally dies but keep in mind that the app will still work on the cellphone, just not the house phones.

 

[John Galt III]

Did you buy the wired version or the wifi version?

I am thinking about buying the wifi version and have it downstairs... I want to get rid of Comcast and go to fiber but fiber does not do VOIP...

But if it does power the whole house then might not need it... but I do not know how many plugs on the wifi device of the new company..

I got the wired version of Ooma. I heard that the wireless was flakey sometimes. The Ooma tech also said the wireless version had way more problems than the wired version.

 

[John Galt III]

I was going to reply but you found your problem. My suggestion was that there was no way you were disabled from the telco if you still had power on the phones. And, apparently you were not disconnected!

Right. I wish you had posted earlier, JoeWras. I posted that I still had lights and beeps on my phones even after I had ( I thought) disconnected the outside line, and no one commented on it, until now. (thanks!) Of course, the whole thing was my fault due to not initially seeing the second rj11 plug in the outside box, lol.

 

[John Galt III]

Did you buy the wired version or the wifi version?

I am thinking about buying the wifi version and have it downstairs... I want to get rid of Comcast and go to fiber but fiber does not do VOIP...

But if it does power the whole house then might not need it... but I do not know how many plugs on the wifi device of the new company..

Speaking of fiber, Verizon wanted to put fiber along my street (they were denied, supposedly) and their letter to me stated that if I were to get fiber, I could hook my landline up to the fiber (disconnect the old copper) with what they called 'landline over fiber', which would not be anything involved with Fios, but something different. I never got to try it, since Verizon gave up trying to get 'permission' (so they say) to install the fiber in my neighborhood. I had to drop my Verizon landline, which is why I went with Ooma voip.

By the way, now that I have possibly given a bad rap to the Ooma tech support folks, I would like to say that they were actually right to say that my setup should have worked. I misinformed them unknowingly when I told them I had unplugged ALL the rj11 jacks in the outside box.

 

[JoeWras]

Speaking of fiber, Verizon wanted to put fiber along my street (they were denied, supposedly) and their letter to me stated that if I were to get fiber, I could hook my landline up to the fiber (disconnect the old copper) with what they called 'landline over fiber', which would not be anything involved with Fios, but something different. I never got to try it, since Verizon gave up trying to get 'permission' (so they say) to install the fiber in my neighborhood. I had to drop my Verizon landline, which is why I went with Ooma voip.

"landline over fiber" is just a name for their VOIP. Ooma is VOIP. OBI is VOIP. "It would not be anything involved with fios" just means they want to stack services for you and squeeze $$$ out of you twice. 1) Fios, 2) Phone service. Both would go over the same fiber, but they would say "they are not related." Yeah, right.

Blah, blah, blah, same old, same old from these service providers. I have a headache now. I retired from this junk a decade ago and it gives me flashbacks. Dealing with service providers is worse than dealing with used car salespeople. The worst part of it was I was an enabler of these pushers. I was a tiny part in the making of the algorithms they used to screw people. I still wake up sweating over my part in this asymmetric war on consumers.

As for Texas Proud saying: "I am thinking about buying the wifi version and have it downstairs... I want to get rid of Comcast and go to fiber but fiber does not do VOIP..." I'm not quite sure what this means. Any fiber pipe that is a properly configured IP device can do VOIP. Perhaps they are fire-walling it and forcing you into their solution. This is sleezy and typical of C*c*st. See my statement above about my part in enabling the SPs.

 

[JoeWras]

Sorry, I guess I'm on a roll. This discussion is actually important. The world has changed around us, and we're going to have to face it: there will be no more house phones anymore. It has already swept the world, with just pockets of resistance from mostly the over 60 crowd. We will lose. Embrace the cell phone. We can ease ourselves into the grave with Ooma, but the kids won't have anything to do with it. It's over.

It is really incredible too. The speed at which this happened is breath taking. It is very much like the speed of urban electrification in the late 1800s, and actually faster.

The non-profit I volunteer for had the fire department put the screws to them for the last decade requiring copper lines for the alarm. No VOIP allowed. "Not a reliable connection." So the non-profit paid incredible prices for copper lines (like $250 per month for a two-line fire alarm signaler). Then last year, out of the blue, the fire department says: "Oh yeah, we dropped that requirement. Not reliable anymore." No shoot, sherlock! The downtime was something like 30%.

Phone companies cannot and will not maintain buried copper anymore. It is too costly. If you really need a copper line, they will make you pay a lot. And very soon, it simply won't exist. AT&T's official position is no more copper by 2029.

 

[skyking1]

there is plenty of copper still out and about Joe. I am using some slow arsed DSL over copper here at the apartment. We are stuck with it on the fringes where the promise of fiber is still too pricey due to the population densities. Thankfully the new house has cable, and this house could too for a price.

 

[JoeWras]

I hope you get fiber. The SPs that still promote DSL are itching to just get you a 5G wireless base station and decommission the DSL lines. That's going to happen too, but not as aggressively as the landline/POTS decommission is happening.

 

[Texas Proud]

OK, to add more on my end...

The fiber company is EZEE... they do not offer VOIP as part of their package so I have to go somewhere else to get it... which means ANOTHER bill to pay... I would like to just move from Comcast to EZEE and move my phone over to them...

Another question... Comcast at least has spam blocking... does OOMA have this?

Does the ID feature show the name and number? I have read different accounts so am not sure...

How much are you paying each month?

 

[fognostic]

Another question... Comcast at least has spam blocking... does OOMA have this?

Does the ID feature show the name and number? I have read different accounts so am not sure...

How much are you paying each month?

Basic Ooma service itself is free after you buy the base Telo unit. We currently pay $6.62/month in taxes and fees. The $6.62/month is essentially just covering the FCC network access charges and taxes Ooma has no control over.

Ooma blocks spam with nomorobo if you pay an additional $9.95/month for Premier service. We do not pay extra for Ooma Premier and we still receive few to no spam calls. Spam is far more prevalent on our cell phones, and even on our cell phones spam is not frequent (GoogleFi blocks many I suspect, and others are flagged as "Suspected Spam" on our cell phones when the call comes in). I wouldn't pay for Premier to block spam without trying basic first to see if it is even an issue.

Our basic Ooma service provides caller ID - both name and number.

Our up front investment was $60 for a certified refurbished Telo unit in 2016. For a one-time fee, you can get your old/current phone number ported to Ooma, but we had recently moved anyway so we just picked a new number. We plugged our cordless phone base unit into the Ooma box and have other cordless handsets sprinkled around the home.

Until DW agrees to let the "landline" go, it continues to save us a lot of coin compared to the local internet service provider or POTS provider. Another advantage over the years was severing our phone service from our other service providers. We have always been free to switch internet providers without the hassle and potential expense of porting our phone number. That flexibility has kept our internet service cost low - if ISP price went up, we simply switched to the other providers introductory offer and vice-versa.