Ok, got our number ported and now have our old phone number and (with Premier service) a second number for the fax line. Want to do more testing on the fax line - it was working fine for multi-page documents before, but now we are 100% disconnected from our landline. We were spending ~ $115 for two numbers, 3MBPS DSL, and average long distance charges. Changed to 5MBPS fiberoptic internet service (faster for the same money). That means our old phone bill was about $960/year. We bought an Ooma hub from Costco for $180, bought a Scout on Amazon for $35, bought Premier service from Ooma with two numbers for $120/year, and had our old number ported for $45(?). Projected savings for the first year = $580, second year $840.
I made things difficult for myself - had our DSL filter out at the incoming MaBell line and three homeline pairs hooked up out there - didn't want to drop the MaBell connection, so was pairing up different homeline pairs, being sensitive to tip/ring +- polarity. The Ooma connection was noisy/static-y, but perfect when plugging directly into the Ooma Hub. Went all over the house looking for the crossed connection. This morning disconnected house wiring from MaBell completly and sonufagun - they are the ones with the dirty line!
At present we have the Ooma Hub plugged into the house phonelines, ditto our fax machine, ditto our portable phone base, ditto three other wired phones, ditto TV. Our new second number is set at the Ooma website to do two short rings and our fax picks up that line. Caller ID on the tv (satellite through Dish) works. Phone in the garage rings and works. Old rotary with ringer off in the bedroom works. As it looks now, everything is up and running without the use of the Ooma Scout!?! Clarity is superior to our old landline. Will do more Fax testing tomorrow for multi-page incoming and outgoing documents and then call Qwest to say buh-bye.
Ooma has some nice features - thinking we could cart the Hub with us if we were to snowbird somewhere and have uninterrupted phone service. Have it set up to route calls to a cell in case of network outage. Hoping the community blacklist might be more extensive at blocking calls, like from political "surveys", than the national do not call registry.
Oh - just remembered - number porting was gratis with the premier service. Just saving $$$ hand over fist here!