Ooma Core VoIP Phone System
by ooma
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List Price: Our Price: $170.00 You Save: $79.99 (32%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Ooma Core VoIP Phone System
Customer Review: Ooma is Fantastic
Summary: 5 Stars
Setting ooma up was a breeze. I had my ooma operating within 20 minutes of opening the box.
To help people understand how it works, I will explain how it is setup in my house.
The Internet comes into the cable modem. The computer network cable goes from the cable modem to the back of the ooma hub. Another network cable goes from the ooma hub to the router (nothing else changed regarding our home computer network - and I haven't noticed any performance change with the Internet.)
There is a standard phone wire that goes from the ooma hub to a regular old phone jack on the wall behind the computer - this is the wire that sends the ooma phone signal from the ooma hub to the rest of the phone jacks in the house.
I have a telephone plugged into the "phone" jack on the ooma hub. The cable modem, ooma hub and this phone are all in the basement.
I have an ooma scout plugged into a phone jack in the kitchen. The kitchen phone then plugs into this ooma scout. This phone has a cordless phone too. It is working just fine with ooma.
I have another ooma scout plugged into a phone jack in an upstairs bedroom. There is a phone plugged into that scout.
In the garage there is another ooma scout plugged into a phone jack. There is a phone plugged into that ooma scout too.
The sound quality on all of the phones is just fine and rivals our old land-line connection. The sound quality is much better than your average cell phone connection.
The kitchen and garage phones are both on wall mounted phone jacks. This works just fine if you use short phone cords (from the jack to the ooma scout and from the ooma scout to the phone) and have a place to hide the power cord. I used a little sticky tack to hold the scout against the wall under the phone. Velcro would be another wall-mount option.
I was paying about $30 a month for basic phone service from my local phone company. That price did not include any additional features, caller ID or long distance. It was just basic phone service.
After buying the ooma equipment, I paid $100 for a YEAR of their premier service (I think their current price is $10 a month for premiere - which you don't need to buy, but is nice.) So, I'm saving about $400 a year for a system that has WAY better features and INCLUDES long distance.
Some features/benefits of ooma:
-It includes voice mail.
-You can listen to voice mail from the ooma hub or anywhere you have an ooma scout! (Premiere feature)
-You can listen to your voice mail messages by logging in to ooma's web site.
-You can even set your account to e-mail your voice mail messages to you (as an audio attachment.) (Premiere feature)
-I now have Caller ID.
-You can BLOCK numbers that you do not want to receive calls from. (Premiere feature)
-There is even a feature that you can turn on that will block calls from numbers that have been blocked by many ooma users.(Premiere feature)
-An incoming and outgoing call log is kept for viewing on the ooma web site.
-If you are talking on one extension and receive an incoming call, ooma will automatically route the incoming call to your other extensions on a virtual second line. (Premiere feature)
You don't have to purchase the premiere service. You can buy the ooma equipment and not pay anything else for home phone service.
Porting my old land line phone number to my ooma account took about 18 days. Ooma stayed in contact with me via e-mail during the porting process.
Also, I did call ooma a few times with questions - one before I purchased the system and two times after I installed it to ask about porting. I only waited on hold a few minutes each time and each of the representatives were fluent in English and answered my questions correctly. I have been very pleased with the customer service.
I can't believe how simple the whole process was. The ooma system works very well and is packed with features that also work very well. This is a purchase that I am very glad that I made.
Customer Review: Ooma phone - FREE! what else is there to know
Summary: 5 Stars
My wife and I have had the Ooma for about 3 months now. We love it! Easy to set up, easy to have my existing landline number transferred to Ooma (but takes a few weeks, and has a one-time $40 fee). Calls are clear, I cannot notice any difference between the Ooma and my old landline (which we have cancelled). The Ooma comes with a free trial of Ooma premier, which seems to add some useful features such as the second line; once the Ooma premier free trial runs out, you lose the second line. I plugged the phone jack outlet on the Ooma base into my wall phone jack, so now all of my phones function just as they did when I had a landline that cost around $25/mo, with another $10/mo or so in government taxes and fees... Did I mention the Ooma phone service is free?
*UPDATE* Sept 17th: I have not noticed any difference between the Ooma and the land line it replaced. Call quality is great, no phone issues (outages, missed or dropped calls, etc). We get free nationwide long distance, so now my wife can call her brother in California any time she feels like it.
We have free caller ID now too... we never had it before because we just didn't want to spend extra money for features we could do without. Well, the caller ID has been a blessing... now I do not answer almost 99% of our calls, which are usually from my mother-in-law or my wife's friends; thank you caller ID!
We did not sign up for Ooma premier, just the basic. So we have no phone bill whatsoever. I cannot imagine this will sit too well with the federal & local governments when they see the loss of revenue from telecommunications taxes... it will be pretty hard for the FCC to tax a free service, but I am confident that they will legislate a way to do it.
*UPDATE* Dec 12th, 2009: There will probably be no need for me to provide any more updates. The Ooma phone is still going strong, the call quality is excellent, and it is still 100% free!
I purchased two more Ooma Hub & Scout packages, one as a Christmas present and one to be placed in a Florida vacation rental property. Since cancelling my landline back in July, I have had the Ooma long enough now to have recouped my initial investment.
I read on a website somewhere that the Ooma business model is flawed, and that Ooma has to pay a small recurring fee for every phone number it provides. The blogger said that ultimately Ooma would not be able to provide free service indefinitely, and would either go bankrupt or have to start charging a service fee.
It looks as though there may be some truth to this, as along with the introduction of the new Ooma Telo device (which is replacing the hub & scout combo)... there will be a $1.00/month service charge for the FREE Ooma service plan. In my opinion, this is nothing to complain about however... once a fee for service is initiated, the door has just been opened for GOVERNMENT to stick their dirty little fingers into the pie. Soon (mark my words), the $1.00/month FREE service will incur a 911 fee, number portability surcharge, service tax, etc etc etc etc... and before too long the FREE service will be $12.00/month instead of $12.00/year... from there it will just keep going until you have your old monthly bill back again.
Luckily, the OLD Ooma Hub & Scout combo will remain 100% FREE, and will be grandfathered in to the Ooma service. Only new purchasers of the Ooma Telo and beyond will be subject to the $12.00/year regulatory recovery fee.
I still think that even the 100% FREE Ooma users (such as myself) will ultimately be forced to pay some sort of telecommunications tax/fee, but for the time being and into the near future it will remain 100% free until the politicians re-write existing legislation so that they can tax free services.
*Update: November 30, 2010*
My Ooma is still going strong, and it is still 100% free. Call quality is great. I have a 2nd totally free Ooma in a vacation rental, and I no longer have to pay for my guests to have free nationwide phone service. Ooma has already re-paid my initial investment back several times over, gotta love the Ooma!
Customer Review: Good, but no phone card from them still.....
Summary: 5 Stars
The Good:
YOu can call everywhere in the USA
You can call overseas for about the same cost as Skype (no world plan though)
The VERY Shady part
When you first get the phone, you think it is SOO great, features like you get your voice mails to go to email in wave format. Naturally, you go and tell everyone you know about this GREAT new phone system you bought. This is the shady part, they do not "ask" you if you wanted to sign up for "premier-TRIAL", IT JUST COMES THAT WAY. I said from day 1 I just want "FREE". so at first you get all these features and get VERY excited. Then after 90 days BAM, no more Voice mail going to your email, BAM, suddenly BAM NO MORE SECOND LINE. BAM no call blocking, ETC. ECT. It is sorta like a Pyramid or MLM scheme. They keep getting new customers, and people keep recommending it... The people they told about it, tell 10 more people when they get their new phones. That is how the business keeps growing...
Update: while the phone system is great, I am still waiting on my $50 phone card I was promised. Don't try to do the resale thing to get a $50 card, you will never get it. Supposable, if you suggest a friend, they will give a a $50 international card, but good luck getting it. I am STILL waiting and emails go unanswered. SHAME, SHAME, SHAME!!!!
This phone system is truely a God Send. I basically plugged this thing in, put my few digit serial number in to register the unit. Hello Dialtone! I don't know why but the re-occuring charges are my pet peeve with traditional phone lines. With the $50 giftcard for international calls, this unit will cost me about $170. In a few months, the unit pays for iteself, and I save on phone calls for the rest of my life. My wife also calls overseas, so it is nice just to plug in some cash, and dial the phone to call anywhere in the world. For wiring I kept it simple, just plugged a cordless phone in, I will get more complicated as time permits.
E-mail and internet is free, why not the Phone? Actually, I called my ISP and demanded they give me a "DSL ONLY" line and to drop the old school type phone system. Not only do I have a cheaper monthly bill from XYZ phone company, but my speed is actually 5 times faster that I dropped the voice off, and had them upgrade my data. Really I am paying half and getting twice as much.
The free features are awesome, you can make it ring to another handset or cell. Have your voicemail and caller ID info forwarded to your mailbox. For someone like me always on the go, this is really a blessing.
What's more, for the annoying calls you can not only see them for free on your free caller ID, but you can block them for free. You can also sign up for a community blacklist feature, which is like a spam filter for phone calls. I mean, come on, what more can you ask for?
My big question with the free unit, I got a free phone number which I am now giving out to everyone. My big question was with the free line, if I am on a call what happens? Well, you can pick up the other line, because call waiting is free with the unit. You can also just forward it to your free voicemail.
The Scout, Ok what is this thing? It basically comes for free, and allows you to set up another phone in your house. Why would you want to do this? If you are on the Hub, and on a call, just tell your teen to pick up the phone on the scout and here they can dial out while you are still on the phone. Amazing, 2 outbound calls at once.
I was only paying 25$ a month for a phone I never used, just to have DSL. I can not imagine what someone who really uses the phone alot would save. Now that the calls are totally free, I am using the phone much much more!
UPDATE: I FINALLY GOT MY $50 card MONTHS AFTER HOUNDING THEM BY MULTIPLE EMAILS AND CALLS.
All in all it is good for making free phone calls if you had a Data connection, but that is IT. Forget about features unless you want to pay $100 a year.
Customer Review: switched to ooma from AT&T CallVantage
Summary: 5 Stars
I got the letter from AT&T CallVantage that they are discontinuing the service so I went with ooma. Didn't feel like messing with other complicated monthly plans or even more complex pay as you go plans. I like the idea of paying once and forgetting about it.
Setup was fairly straight forward (no manuals here...hehe). I plugged in the cat5 cable coming from the Verizon FIOS ONT outside direct to the "MODEM" port and my Linksys wireless router to the "HOME" port. I was surprised OOMA automatically configured itself with no intervention on my part and the blue light came on.
So far the only issue I have come across with this setup is that utorrent port test says my custom port is blocked. But torrents are downloading fine so maybe thats just a glitch with the port tester. I also have an xbox360 on my home LAN and Live works fine with this setup. (this maybe bit of an overkill but I put my Linksys in the ooma DMZ for good measure ...yes for those advanced users ooma has a management GUI much like a home router which can be accessed via setup.ooma.com)
I then connected the included splitter into the PHONE jack on the back of ooma. One line from the spliter goes to the wall jack and supplies "dial tone" to all the phone jacks in the house. I have cordless phones so not sure if just a regular non-powered analog phone would work so this is a your mileage may vary situation. (ooma apparently does not "officially" support this setup per conversation with tech support) But hey, CallVantage never "officially" supported this setup either. As long as it works thats what matters.
The other line from splitter goes to my fax modem in the PC which is again split off from fax modem to another cordless phone. So far everything works perfect with this setup.
I haven't hooked up the scout as I haven't come across a real need for it but may try it out later. Even if you don't subscribe to premier it can still be used to manage vmail from another room in the house.
After giving it a through trial for about couple weeks I did not notice any difference in call quality compared to CallVantage. Everything worked as expected... caller id, call waiting, vmail. About the only features I'll miss from CV is the scheduled do not disturb but hey maybe thats asking too much as I haven't seen any other providers offer it. Oh and I really with it had an integrated speaker phone but again, maybe thats asking bit too much from a Terminal Adapter.
So all working as expected, I finally started the port process to move my CallVantage number to ooma and to my surprise I did not have to fax anything in like some have stated. What I found from tech support is that it depends on the other company's policy on if a signed form is required and luckily CallVantage does not requir a signed form. Again YMMV on this one.
Speaking of tech support, during the course of few weeks starting with research before purchasing the unit to now, I called tech support three times (with various pre-sales questions...etc..just pick the option that you have the service already and they will talk to you anyways) and calls were picked up consistently within a few minutes and they were able to answer my questions.
All in all I am very happy with my purchase and have recommended it to my friends and colleagues. As for those who question the viability of the company, I say no one is ever safe with any company. There is always chance of a company going out of business like Sun Rocket or discontinue its service like CallVantage. In the end I think the cost savings justify the risk.
Customer Review: Tale of Three Installations
Summary: 5 Stars
My dad, a retired 74 year old, was looking for a way to reduce his $65/mo phone bill. I looked at Vonage, but didn't see how he could save all that much. Then I saw OOMA and told him about it. He got very exited and bought before I even had time to ask questions. He then ordered up basic DSL at $20/month and connected the phone lines to the house properly ( usually a $200 charge, but my Dad used to be an electrician ).
He installed the OOMA to his new DSL modem and BANG was using it right away. Even with a 768/384 basic dsl he had astonishingly good call quality. He liked his new number and cancelled the old phone line, going all digital. That was a few months ago. He gets an occiasional echo, but overall it's perfectly fine and even clearer than his old phone line. So a 74 year old grandpa had no problem.
I then told a friend and she went out to Best Buy to get OOMA that same day and got the same results with her DSL. She had a little higher bandwidth than my Dad and she thought it worked great. Plugging her fax directly to the OOMA and using the SCOUT her for phone, she even managed to be able to send and recieve the occasional fax. She emailed over the form for the phone number port, but there was a bit of an error on her part. Nonetheless, ATT ported her number - getting the DSL back on was a hassle and a $200 re-install fee. For awhile she had no phone or DSL until they turned everything back on. However, it's all working fine now.
So, I decided I was dragging my feet and bought an OOMA too. Ordered from amazon it took a week to arrive. Now, I have cable internet. Which is a bit more complex. I also don't have a phone jack or a computer anywhere near my cable modem. I have everything wireless. So, I hooked up my OOMA per the instructions and it worked right away. However, call quality was terrible. it was very choppy. I played with the QoS settings all day and got no decent results. I called the cable company and they checked the signal - finding an issue which turned out to be a faulty modem. Got a new modem and it was crystal clear. THEN, I noticed at certain times of the day it would get choppy again. Since cable internet is shared bandwidth I realized that my signal was varying WAAY too much for a clear connection. So, I increased my bandwidth ( $10 more a month ). And MAN it was clearer and I never had a disconnect. Once in a while I get an echo, but that is maybe a few times a week out of several calls. So, if you have cable internet you may need to increase the bandwidth - case in point during the Oscars my internet came to a complete crawl and so did the OOMA. Now, I got my phone ported. I *had* to, there were no more numbers left in my area code. It's $40, but it's still cheaper than a $90/mo phone bill from ATT. After one month I got my phone ported from ATT - which for about 24 hrs I had no service on that number. The following day it worked like a champ. Internaitonal calls are less than half of what I was paying on a low-rate calling card before. I can basically call overseas for several hours for only $10!
NOTES:
If the power goes out or your little kid unplugs the power, turn on the modem, then the OOMA, then the router or computer. Do it slowly in series. If I don't my internet comes to a complete halt.
I guess I am one of the lucky ones, I've always been able to contact customer service within 5-10 minutes. USE the forums, they are super helpful.
If you increase bandwidth, change your QoS settings or the calls go wacky and the internet slows.