Ooma Core VoIP Phone System
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Ooma Core VoIP Phone System
Customer Review: Important pre-2010 info if you are considering ooma Core or Telo
Summary: 5 Stars
Was not going to review ooma because in several hundred previous reviews, it would appear that it's all been said, no?
However, ooma has now come out with newer hardware, and as of October 1 2009 has changed their Terms of Service, causing much confusion among current and prospective owners.
This review mostly concerns the time period of October through December 31 2009, though parts of it may still be helpful in 2010 and beyond :)
To provide you with a quick background, I have had my ooma Core system for three months now. I was kind of surprised when I saw my purchase date, because I feel like I've used it for much, much longer. I have NO hardware experience, having always left it to someone else to set up computers, televisions, etc. However, I installed ooma myself, with a DSL modem and a router that are each maybe 10 years old, connecting it to my laptop network. When I replaced my laptop with a desktop, using a new combo modem/router, I again had no trouble installing ooma and connecting my other computers to my new network. For reference, I have Verizon DSL with 3 Mbps download speed, and I have always had perfectly clear phone reception without any discernable difference in my web surfing speeds. I never even had to take the extra Quality of Service steps in ooma's instructions. Prior to my ooma purchase, I had been a very satisfied Vonage customer since November 2006. I still recommend Vonage to those who are unwilling to pay for ooma hardware, as they only recently raised their rate in all that time, by only $2/month, and it's still a fantastic deal compared to traditional landlines. However, ooma is even cheaper, or even free, depending upon how many features you want/need, so I made the jump and hope to never look back. Porting our number from Verizon to Vonage was a nightmare in 2006, and I have seen many people still have issues, although the phone companies seem to be slowly coming out of their self-induced fog.
I recommend that if you already have DSL attached to the phone number that you wish to port to VOIP, that you either ask for "dry loop" DSL, or if they don't seem to understand that, that you cancel your DSL while keeping your voice number active (or you won't be able to port it), then re-sign up for DSL or whatever high speed internet is competitive in your area, without attaching it to your phone number. Make sure your phone number is voice-only, completely unrelated to your internet service, and THEN you can activate ooma and begin the porting process. Porting to ooma costs $39.99, or is included free with a Premier subscription. I'm not sure if there will be issues by beginning the porting process before December 31st and completing it after, so you may wish to do this soon or ask questions of your current provider and ooma relevant to your particular situation.
Now, on to the subject of my review. There are many reasons why some people should purchase the new ooma Telo system, and others should purchase the ooma Core (Hub and Scout) system. What I want to stress, right now, is that you choose to go with the Core, DO NOT buy the ooma Hub all by itself! You MUST buy the Core, which includes the Hub AND a Scout, even if you don't need the Scout, in order to retain ooma's original benefits.
Unlimited minutes with ooma is 5000 minutes per month. This is well over 2.5 hours of talking every single day, which the vast majority of regular users will never come close to. If you're trying to use it for business purposes, that's a whole other story. So if you'd like "unlimited" phone service, with free benefit-packed voice mail and no fees of any sort (other than original hardware purchase), then you should buy the ooma Core system while you still can. In ooma's online forums, ooma representatives have confirmed that people with the Core system who activate before December 31st 2009 will still receive the free voice mail, 60 day Premier trial, and will not be charged the new annual regulatory recovery fee of $11.75 that Telo users will now be paying. A person who activates or who has already activated their ooma Core system can purchase a year of ooma Premier before December 31st 2009 at the $99.99 rate, but the following years will be at the new annual rate of $119.99, still with no annual regulatory recovery fee. You can also, for an unspecified amount of time, purchase a "Lifetime" Premier subscription, for $349.99. This can be purchased on either the Core or the Telo, and covers that original equipment. If the equipment fails, you can extend your Lifetime subscription another ooma device, but it has to be the same type as originally covered, either Hub or Telo.
So if you are considering buying Lifetime Premier, then I recommend Telo, because it's more likely that equipment will still be around to replace your original equipment should it fail. While the optional Telo handset does optimize ooma's features, it is not necessary and you do not have to have the Telo handset for your ooma system to work. You can still use your original corded or cordless phone(s). This applies to ooma Core/Hub as well. If you are NOT going to buy Lifetime Premier, and ESPECIALLY if you do not wish to pay for phone service at all, then I suggest you buy the ooma Core. In contrast, if you buy just the ooma Hub, without the Scout, or if you buy the Telo, then voicemail will not be included for free. You will still get it with a Premier subscription, or it can now be purchased as a standalone feature for $49.99/year. This includes call screening (like an old-fashioned answering machine), notifications sent to your mobile phone if you desire, voicemail attachments sent to your email if you choose, a quick Do Not Disturb option, and a Send-to-Voicemail button.
I'm not going to list all the features because that's not only been done, but can be easily found on ooma's site. I will tell you what features that I personally enjoy, and why I'm a Premier subscriber instead of free. I love the voicemail screening ability, and the ability for my daughter to tell a caller that she's going to transfer them to my voicemail, push a button, and I don't miss an important message. I also love the Multi-Ring feature... I never have to worry about call-forwarding, because whenever someone calls my house, it rings my cell at the exact same time. One little annoyance here is that when I answer the call on my cell, that was originally placed to my home/ooma number, I have to quickly press "1" to accept the call, or the caller is disconnected. I don't understand the logic... If I have chosen to have it ring my cell, and I ANSWER my cell, then YES, I want the call! Why make me press another button at this point?
I also have it programmed to send people who have their Caller ID blocked to voicemail, without ever ringing my phone. I never liked the idea of completely blocking a call, so this is great! If it's important, then they'll leave a message, right? The Scout is not necessary, but if you wish, it can be used to provide you with your free second line (A Premier feature). If you are planning on getting a new phone number, instead of porting an old one, I recommend getting your free second phone number at the same time as your first, and this way they can possibly be sequential. I did this, and ended up cancelling the porting I had started on my old number, since I liked having sequential numbers, just like my family's cell phones. I used my old discontinued Panasonic KX-TG2622 2.4 GHz Digital Cordless Telephone with ooma, and then I purchased Panasonic DECT 6.0 Expandable Cordless Telephone (KX-TG6413T) (pre-Telo handset, darn it!) and both work wonderfully with ooma. I now have my old phone set hooked up to the second line. So if you get the Telo, maybe you decide on the free handset instead of porting option they're currently offering. It is troublesome changing your phone number with everyone, but I had no attachments to my old number so for me it was worth it. The second line and second phone number would have been much more useful to me in the past, pre-cellular, but it's included with Premier so I take advantage of the feature. One thing you may use that second phone number for is to give it out to all those businesses or people that you never want calling you, and never even hook up a phone to it! Stores, online shopping, creepy guys/gals at bars, etc...
Make sure when you set up your "service" address, that you use your actual home address! This is the address that will show up when you call 9-1-1 from your ooma phone, so this is NOT the place to enter your billing/mailing address. If you are concerned about 9-1-1 services being disrupted, obtain the direct 7-digit numbers for police/fire/medical dispatch in your area, post them wherever it makes sense, and program them into your phones' memory. You should also do this on your cell phone for whatever cities you find yourself in most often, and for the highway patrol dispatch center in your area. You will reach the exact person who can help you instead of being 1 or 2 transfers and retellings away, which can still happen when you dial 9-1-1 from a cellular phone. If it helps to assuage your fear about VOIPs and 9-1-1, I can tell you that I have unfortunately had to dial 9-1-1 for two medical emergencies and one police emergency during the time that I had Vonage, and my call went to the right place every time, because my address was loaded properly.
Hope that helps you in your decision-making process, and feel free to Comment. I do not work for ooma and have only been a customer for three months, so I may not have the answer you're looking for, but I will do the best I can to help you with any questions that you might have.
Customer Review: Ooma Hub/Scout System & Service Review
Summary: 5 Stars
Like everyone else, I had some concerns before jumping on the Ooma bandwagon. Some of the concerns were justifiable but others were complicated by the new TOS and the introduction of the new hub replacement ooma Telo Free Home Phone Service.
1) Is ooma a reliable company and what are the long term viability?
I think this is a valid concern and ooma has not been very transparent about it. However, they have been getting VC funding and have been aggressively promoting their new telo. They just announced that they are edging towards 100,000 customers.
2) Are there any yearly fees?
There is NO regulatory fee charged for this hub/scout system.
3) Ooma charges you $39 for number porting; however they waive that if you purchase the premier service currently at $120/year. You can check out the ooma website for more details on premier features. My porting from AT&T took exactly 3 weeks. You can fill out a form online and they will get back to you regarding the porting process. I initially didn't receive the email from them, but sending an email to their customer service was answered in 48 hours with the date of transfer.
If you have DSL and you port your number, you will lose your DSL connection. I switch to cable before the switch, however if DSL is your only option you can request a DRY LOOP line which might be more expensive ($10 or more). Do not call your phone provider to close your account; it will be closed when your number is ported.
You also have an option to integrate your current phone line to ooma. You choose this option when you activate your hub, if you choose this option then some of the features offered by ooma such as caller ID won't work. Your incoming phone will come through your current phone provider, but your outgoing calls will be handled by ooma.
4) Sound Quality and how it compares to Vonage?
I must say ooma quality is on par with Vonage and I cannot tell the difference between voice quality on ooma vs. landline. However, your result may vary according to your network activities. I have my ooma behind a router with QOS (Quality of Service) prioritizing ooma traffic. I have cable internet with 10/2 package, I have used ooma simultaneously with downloads and netflix streaming with no effect on call quality. I did have some echo problems and other party having difficulty hearing me on a call to India.
I'll definately recommend you enable the QOS and get an internet package with good upload speed if you download/stream frequently.
My connection looks like this:
Motorola SB6120 SURFboard DOCSIS 3.0 eXtreme Broadband Cable Modem => Linksys WRT54G => Ooma hub => Panasonic Dect 6.0 Black Metallic Cordless Phone with Answering Machine (KX-TG6444T)
5) International Rates: Ooma's international rate is not very competitive. Rate for India dropped from $0.13 to 0.08/minute which still is expensive. You can get 500 minutes of international call to 70 countries for $4.99, if you subscribe to ooma premier. This changes the monthly rate $14.00/month ($4.99 +10/month or $120/year for premier). International calls are prepaid, you can add amount you want to your account through the website and you cannot set your account to refill automatically.
You also get an announcement "You have $10 dollars/# of minutes left" before each international call and get a warning when you don't have enough credits. It also disconnects when your money runs out, even if you refill it while on call. So basically, you have to just call back.
6) Customer Service: The only time I had to call the customer service is when they dropped my temporary number after my actual number transferred from AT&T. My call was picked up in about 30 seconds and my issue was resolved with me getting back my 2nd number.
I have heard of people having with customer service, if you have any problems post them on ooma forums under the support page. I think you will get faster response to your problems from ooma user and also from ooma moderators if you don't have the patience for phone support.
7) The scout device: I have the Hub in the study and scout in the bedroom. Scout is just a smaller "hub" which allows you to use the 2nd line feature and also check your voice mail. It won't work unless you have the HUB connected to your home phone socket and scout connected to the same line somewhere else in your home.
8)Ooma Hub/Scout system does include Caller ID - name and number without premier. (Correct me if I'm wrong)
9)If you are interested in premier service which is currently at $120/year, you might also want to consider the ooma lifetime premier service for $350. I'm not sure if this is the current rate as of Jan 2010 and its only for the life of the equipment. It also extends the warranty of your system to an additional year.
I bought ooma about 3 months ago and I have no complains so far. The other day they upgraded some database and the service was down for few hours. They communicate the service status through their forums and also though their twitter status page. Your hub also has a tab which turns red when there are any problems. You can forward your calls to your cell phone when there is a service outage or have your cell phone ring simultaneously when a call comes through your ooma. Call forward on service outage has been moved to basic tier but simultaneous ring is a premier feature.
People had success using fax, TIVO and home alarm systems and your best bet is to post on ooma forum of any issues you might have. Jason Page has a comprehensive review on the first page with over 100 comments which will answer most of your questions. You can also check out the ooma forum under the ooma support page. There are some extremely helpful ooma users and moderators.
Update:
If you are a Previous Ooma hub owners (Core or Premier), can move you accounts, phone numbers, and features to the new Telo service including voicemail, and will not be subject to the annual regulatory recovery fee.
I'll recommend the hub/scout system only if you want to avoid the $11/year ($0.92/month) regulatory fee starting the 2nd year. The new telo has some features exclusive to it including routing your cell phone calls through Bluetooth, Google voice integration, voice mail transcription sent to you via email/text and Iphone application. The telo also runs cheaper, amazon had a promotion(till January 30, 2010) where you can get a Telo and an Amazon gift card worth $40 for $199 - $220.
Customer Review: Ooma service and call quality is excellent
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been using Ooma for exactly one month and couldn't be happier. I'm a former Vonage evangelist so to speak. I was with Vonage for nearly seven years--from August 2002 until May 15th, 2009--when my Vonage number was ported over to Ooma. I really liked Vonage and it was hard to say goodbye. But "free phone service" with Ooma was too good to pass up, especially after having tested Ooma's services for a week. I looked into Ooma over a year ago. But at the time I believe Ooma was still charging over four hundred for the equipment. I've read many mixed reviews of both Ooma and Vonage. The quality of each service is dependent upon ones Internet provider and home network setup. I read the articles/blogs on Ooma and their "supposed" Ponzi scheme business model. Actually, their modified business model, with their premier package (which has a per month service charge) just might work and prove the skeptics wrong. I'm hoping/betting that is the case. I figure I will break even after 11 months of Ooma service--comparing my Ooma start-up fees to my monthly Vonage charges. Every month thereafter that Ooma stays in business is just icing on the cake. The only risk after month eleven will be the possibility of losing my phone number if Ooma were to go out of business. However, if Ooma did go under, I suspect there would be a "grace period" in which I could port my number to another provider. Even if I lost my number, it would only take a few minutes to blast an email to all my contacts to let them know my new number. Obviously, I'm hoping that Ooma is in business for a long, long time. I had excellent call quality with Vonage. Ooma's call quality is excellent as well. The Ooma Hub has built in Quality Of Service (QOS) so it is able to prioritize voice traffic over other network traffic. You can also put the Hub "behind" a router if you'd like. I'd suggest you use a router which has QOS so you can ensure your calls are crystal clear. My internet service is 5 MB down, 2 MB up. I ran some extensive tests using Ooma--simultaneously doing the following: utilizing two PCs on my network to create network traffic by downloading streaming video from Hulu or Youtube, downloading huge 50+ MB files, uploading 50+ MB files and browsing the Internet while talking on my Ooma line. I did all this with the Ooma Hub behind my router, which has QOS. The calls were crystal clear. To use the popular phrase "you can hear a pin drop" would be an adequate description regarding my call experience.
A few things to note:
**Outbound call limit is 3000 minutes per month. I've read mixed reviews on whether Ooma actually charges me for each call after the 3000 minute threshold vs. giving me a "warning" of the overage. However, I'm not too worried about it. Looking over my Vonage invoices the past six months we didn't even come close to 3000 minutes for all calls. So, for me this is a non-issue. Besides, since my wife is the one that will be using the Ooma line the most, if she approaches the limit, I'll have to have lay down the law with her and let her know that spending so much time on the phone isn't helping her complete all the other items I have on her "to do" list. :)
**My porting process took 2.5 weeks. It was a flawless experience on the Ooma side. However, there was one hiccup on the Vonage side. Once the number was ported, I had to contact Vonage multiple times for them to "release/delete the number" from their system so that when Vonage customers called me the call would go through, instead of my number appearing as a disconnected number to the caller. Other than that, the port process was painless. Ooma support kept me updated throughout the whole process via multiple emails.
**I've called Ooma support a few times. The reps were friendly and knowledgeable. The average wait time was 1-3 minutes. That's better than my wait time with Verizon/GTE back in the late 90s. I hated calling Verizon/GTE back in the day. It was torture to say the least. Maybe that's why I despise traditional landline service and all their fees/taxes.
**You do NOT need the Ooma Scout to hook up multiple phones to the Ooma service if you plan on having only one Ooma line and no landline. You can simply run a phone line from the Ooma Hub into your existing home wiring/jack and the dial tone will be sent to all the phones in the house. I sold my Scout on Ebay to defray my start-up cost. There were quite a few bidders on Ebay to say the least.
**The Ooma Hub is hybrid router/answering machine. It's actually kind of nice to have an sleek answering machine at your fingertips that integrates with Ooma's website which displays placed/missed calls and voicemails. I love that fact that I get an email AND a text message when I receive a voice mail with the Ooma service. The Ooma Scout acts as an answering machine as well. So, if you want to have multiple answering machines throughout the house (with no landline and no 2nd line with Ooma) the Scout can fill that need. As mentioned above, I sold my Scout. Though a second answering machine would have been nice, I didn't want to pay for the electricity to run it. Call me cheap!
**Last but not least, the Ooma call quality/experience passed the dreaded "wife test." Back in 2002 it took some "prying" to get her to switch to Vonage. But once switched, she loved the service. I must note that in the beginning with Vonage we did have a few hiccups (issues similar to a dropped/spotty cell phone call) but after the first few months our service was near impeccable and up to par with a landline and a thousand times better than the call quality of a cell phone. As a side note, I did try the Magic Jack. I never had too many problems with it. However, the call quality was not as good as Ooma and Vonage. Plus my wife got complaints from callers that they had a hard time hearing her. I didn't like the fact that I had to leave my laptop running 24/7 for Magic Jack to work. So, needless to say Magic Jack didn't pass the "wife test." In hind sight, I'm glad I'm with Ooma. Let the service changes begin. I'm sure all my Vonage friends--that I got started on Vonage--will be switching soon to Ooma--as I'll continue to sing praises to Ooma unless their service dwindles or heaven forbid they go out of business. Let's all hope that's not the case. I'd love to make a subsequent post to this forum in 2016 that I'm still with Ooma and loving every free month of service. My only regret with Ooma was that I didn't switch sooner to their service, once they dropped the start-up price to the two hundred dollar range.
Customer Review: Why Rent Your Phone Line When You Can Own Your Own Dial Tone?
Summary: 5 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
If you are paying $50 per month for your phone bill, combined local and long distance, you are already buying 2 Ooma core packages. At the end of the year you are spending $600, and if you bought 2 Ooma core packages you would only be spending $500. So you saved 100 this year, and 600 next year, and on, and on, and on.
I own my home now, but the last place I rented. It was a condo that I spent 60 grand in rents over 11 years, and it was only selling for 40k when I rented it. Finally I moved out, and the owner sold it for $150k; ouch. That is what you are going to be saying, when in 3 years you realize that Ooma is here to stay, and it is better than something you are renting for twice the money. The phone company doesn't own your internet connection, you do. You're paying double.
If you have a lot of people in the family, you can own 2 Ooma hubs, including the scouts, like this core package has, and have the ability to have 4 people on the phone at the same time. (As long as you purchase the inexpensive premier service for each account; which includes a second phone number for each one.) In other words you would have 4 phone numbers. If you just bought the core package without the premiere service, you would have zero monthly expenses, and have use of a single line. You would have 2 phone numbers with 2 Ooma hubs (with 9 more available per hub for $5 each per month if you wanted to have them) so for a little bit more each person in the house could have their own phone number, with its own distinctive ringing tone, and voice mail box, plus you could assign each number to a hub or scout. So for 12 dollars x 2 per month you have 4 phone numbers. Everyone has their own private number.
Are you getting the impression that I am in love with my Ooma phone service? Did you wonder why it is garnering so many 5 star reviews? People are nuts about this system.
With 2 systems, all you do is plug a second one into your router, just like the first one, and you get a dial tone; so 2 Ooma hubs with scouts work right out of the box by simply plugging both of them into your router. Need more space, get an inexpensive gigabyte switch D-Link DGS-2208 8-Port 10/100/1000 Desktop Switch to connect your home network up to, and have gigabyte speeds between your computers; great for backup purposes. Or if you are buying a router from scratch, you might consider D-Link DIR-655 Extreme N Wireless Router which has the gigabit router built right in.
Myself I am running my Ooma hubs right off of a Netgear Wireless N Router which has the faster N wireless, but the ports are only 100 instead of a Gig, but that doesn't matter, because anything that is coming off of the net isn't faster than 1.5 to 5 with my connection, so 100 is overkill, and the phones don't need anywhere near that, and then I am hooking one of the 4 ports on the router up to an 8 port gigabit switch for internal networking traffic.
The incredible thing about a single or double Ooma hub is that with the scout, you can plug a separate phone into the scout, and if someone is already on the phone, and an incoming call comes in, it will ring on the scout, and someone else can answer it, or you can let the included voice mail get it. If you are already on the phone, and someone else in the house wants to make a call, they just pick up the phone that the scout is attached to, get a fresh dial tone, and make the independent call. That is what is meant by having 2 lines instead of one, they just share the same phone number. Plus you can conference call both lines if you want by simply pressing down both the number 1 and 2 line buttons at the same time. With 2 Ooma systems you could do a 4 way.
I could go on for hours, but in a nutshell, this is VOIP for free. Why pay Vonage, or Lingo $25 plus per month in rent, when you can just purchase a single Ooma core package and own it? If you are paying for regular phone service, you are going to be spending the money for an Ooma hub or two this year anyhow, the only difference is that you own the Ooma hub and your own dial tone, and with the rental you have the privilege of paying for another Ooma hub next year, and next year, and next year. This really is a no brainer, and all with perfect phone clarity, and includes more free calling features that the phone company charges extra for.
One more point worth making is that you can transfer your existing phone number from the phone company over to your Ooma device. Now you own your own phone number. The government wanted a free enterprise environment, so they passed a law that mandates that people can keep their phone numbers, and be able to transfer them over to another phone service if they wish to. Competition is good for everybody. You can also get a new local number from Ooma when you activate the phone. You also have the option of getting a phone number from Ooma that is outside of your service area if you wish to have a friend or relative be able to call you at their local rates.
If you wish to disconnect your phone line, and pay zero monthly phone service to the phone company, that is easy to do also. If you are running DSL, you can request a "dry line" for just your DSL service to run through, and then disconnect your regular phone line. Wah lah, no phone bill, you are only paying them for your broadband connection.
I have been using the Ooma service with hub and scout for 7 months now, and I can tell you that the longer you use it, and start adding up the savings, realizing how much money you would have spent renting your phone line, plus the quality of service it provides, the more you love it. Highly recommended. Plus every Ooma hub owner gets a free membership into the Ooma lounge and forum. Join the party. :-)
Customer Review: TRUST ME - THIS SYSTEM WORKS (I Was Skeptical Too)
Summary: 5 Stars
I am a skeptic, and believe me this system does sound too good to be true. I shopped around for months looking at alternatives to replace my AT&T service which was roughly $120 a month for unlimited domestic, DSL, caller id package and local calling. My first switch was to Road-Runner cable internet which was a dramatically faster service just based upon the side-by-side comparison using one of the online bandwidth speed services. The cost difference between the DSL and cable internet was minimal (basically a wash) but there was the speed to consider as well as the free promotional equipment. (I was due for an upgrade after having DSL for probably 7 or so years....)
Anyway, I continued my research on various types of VOIP offerings and kept coming back to Ooma.
Here's what I liked before actually experiencing the system...
(a) Ability to port my existing phone number which I've had for years
(b) Ability to use my existing phones (a.k.a. not changing things around in my home such as having a phone which only works when I'm at my computer, etc.)
(c) Knowing that if my family suffered some DRASTIC financial woes (job losses, etc.) we would never have to worry about losing our phone service as long as we could afford the $35 for high speed internet (which to me is the last luxury item I would ever ditch anyway since I use it for work, you can use it for entertainment, etc.... a real multipurpose tool for $35 a month)
(d) Caller ID, etc. for no additional cost
(e) e-911
(f) A monthly bill gone ... *poof*
My husband was pretty skeptical too, but he knows I am good with money and don't make decisions in haste. He now thinks I'm some kind of financial genius since this system has been working like a charm. The regular service which you get for the one time purchase of the equipment had EVERYTHING I was previously paying the phone company $85 per month for and MORE. I decided to try the premium service for a year ($99 which rounds out to $8.25 per month) since it included free number portability vs. paying a one time charge of $40 to port my existing number. This system will pay for itself in three months which includes my adding on the premium service for one year.
Here's what I'm getting from Ooma most of which I did not get from my phone provider for the money paid...
(a) Complete call logs online with all incoming and outgoing calls and the ability to `click' and block certain calls, etc.
(b) An optional, personalized `do not call' list based upon calls determined to be `pest' calls by other Ooma users. I have chosen to have these calls sent directly to voicemail (where they hang up, of course) so I have not had a single telemarketer get through to speak to me since signing up
(c) A second phone line that I can use while the other phone line is being used WITH NO DIFFERENCE IN QUALITY AT ALL. I am not kidding; it is like I never dropped the landline. There is no difference at all even when both lines are being used AND we are using the internet i.e. downloading a video, etc.
(d) A second phone number.... Not only do we have our original phone number, I opted for a second FREE phone number too just in case I want to receive business calls at home, etc.
(e) Voicemail which shows up as a `blinking' message on my Ooma hub and scouts (they look and act like an old school answering machine, Voicemail which shows up in my and my husbands email inboxes
(f) The ability to forward my calls to my cell-phone (or any other phone) with a simple click of the mouse (and can remove with a click too)
(g) SATELLITE TV CUSTOMERS... I have a splitter hooked up to the out on my Ooma scout to go to a multi-handset telephone as well as my Dish receiver, so my receiver can still download my program guides as usual AND I still get my caller id on the TV just like before (NOTE: since the satellite receivers can have some issues dialing up over a voip type service, I went into the system menu (6-1-4 on Dish receiver) and set up *99 as my dialing prefix... I read this in a blog after seeing my receiver was dialing multiple times in one day on my Call Log [see bullet a] and it works just fine)
I really could go on, and on and on... Read the review from Jason M. Page if you have questions about how to hook this up. I found his review extremely valuable in my research and can't improve upon it since I have maybe one or two technical bones in my body at the most.
Here what I have... Ooma hub and scout, Wireless Motorola surfboard cable modem, Wireless N D-Link router which I had before switching to cable and would recommend since one of its highlights is the ability to prioritize internet traffic for VOIP, etc.
Even if you are one of the folks which has dropped a landline for cell phone only, I would still recommend you purchase this system if you have high speed internet at home. You could always switch to a lower priced cell package, etc. or even drop it altogether if you hit tough times and you would still have a phone.
Over 12 months of service I will save over $700 after the costs of equipment with making no sacrifices at all - - AND I'm actually getting better service. Even if I had to buy another hub due to equipment malfunction, I would still be saving money. If for some reason the company went out of business, I will still have saved money up until that point. I had a lot of reasons to be skeptical before purchase, but I am sorry I waited as long as I did to sign up.
IF YOU TAKE NOTHING ELSE FROM THIS REVIEW..... You should know that the ONLY way my life has changed after purchasing the Ooma system is that I have more phone perks than EVER before and I do NOT have a phone bill.