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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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Ooma Core VoIP Phone System
Customer Review: Ooma system is great but their customer service is poor
Summary: 5 Stars
I am a former Vonage customer (almost 4 years). I have been using Ooma for over a month now and I am satisfied with their VOIP phone service. However, as with my initial experience with Vonage I have similar points to make about Ooma:
- 5 stars for VOIP phone service
- 1 star for the online customer service; return e-mails very unreliable, almost non existent (I got a response to one of my three e-mails after 3 weeks without any apology for the delay) There is a reason they refer and encourage you to use Ooma forums for help.
- 3 stars for phone customer service; no follow up by calling back as promised. I reported a problem with placing an international call on one occasion (I could hear the other party but they could not hear me). Representative E. gave me a "ticket/case #" and said someone would look into the problem and call me back - never heard from anybody. Problem was somehow solved but I didn't get any credit back for several unsuccessful connections nor any explanation of what caused the problem.
As with all new technology, one has to be prepared and accept occasional glitches. I had serious doubts about continuing my 30-day money-back guarantee trial service with Ooma when on April 13, 2009 the whole system was down for several hours due to "extended Internet service outage" (I assume in California where Ooma operates). But there was no way of knowing what happened; tech. support phone line was just busy (there was no recorded message or any notification to be easy found about the problem). I could not log in to my account (my password was misteriously but only temporarily "changed" on that day, as a "side effect"?). Finally I went to Ooma Forum and dug out some relevant info on what happened. There were also a lot of angry posts from customers. This why you need to be aware of certain limitations when Ooma is in distress. The next day I received a generic e-mail from Ooma with apology, explanation and a promise that they had learned from it a good lesson and that they would handle such a situation better in the future. I hope so. Anyway, I have bookmarked the discovered thread in case I need it next time around. As of this writing they have two places for updated "Service Status":
http://forums.ooma.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=26
http://twitter.com/ooma_status
After porting my old number, I chose to share it between my home wireless phone system and the fax machine. Unless I decide to use the second/temporary number in the future, my Scout unit will stay in the original box. As with Vonage, such an arrangement with Ooma allows me to send and receive occasional faxes. The only difference now is that (before sending a fax) I have to dial first *99 followed by the actual fax number. When I expect to receive a fax, I simply switch my fax machine from Manual to Auto Receive mode, so it picks up the signal on the first ring.
Customer Review: Goodbye AT&T (landline)
Summary: 5 Stars
I hardly ever use my landline these days...mostly just the cell. My landline is almost like my junkmail mailbox (i.e. when I need to give a phone number to some untrusted party). The phone spammers love my landline. So I have become tired of paying monthly for a voice junkmail service. However, I still wanted a landline-like service to supplement my cell. Enter Ooma. I was nervous about the number porting and wondering about the voice quality, but everything has worked to perfection. My number ported in about 3 weeks. On the few times I've used it voice quality was excellent; no echoes or background noises or noticeable delays (I do have good cable internet service. As an aside -- I recently got a new 11n router with claimed automatic QoS for voice-over-IP and other applications -- so I decided to connect the Ooma to the router rather than between the router and the modem as Ooma rightly recommends as the default scheme. This is working fine and is more appealing to me to let the router be king rather than let the Ooma filter the VoIp traffic). I've received a few robocaller calls on the Ooma and I just put that number on my Ooma blacklist -- haven't actually seen it work yet but I am pretty confident. This is a very nice feature. I hope this feature does not go away when my free 60-day Premier service expires. For the time being I plan to use the free service; therefore my only costs have been [and will ever be] the Ooma Core box and the $39 number port. I looked into getting the new Telo but soured on it when I learned they may start charging a small governmental fee (maybe $12.95/yr) on that box. I don't begrudge Ooma recovering some costs and this is a tiny fee...but zero monthly cost is awfully convenient and avoids one more [tiny] brick-in-the-wall of endless monthly fees. If you want the Premier service [which I think is quite reasonable if you want/need the features] then you should probably get the newer Telo -- it looks cooler, is alleged to have a better voice codec, and has some other extra features...but none of which I need for my minimalist situation).
I do have a few minor concerns...
1. Like many others worry -- if Ooma goes under I eat the startup cost. However, I break even with my previous monthly landline rate in about 7.5 months so it's not that big of a gamble.
2. If/when my Ooma Core box breaks they probably won't still be selling the same box and I will be forced to buy the Telo or some even newer box (hence probable small monthly fees...albeit reasonable ones compared other landline or VoIp solutions).
3. I do FAX occasionally and it probably will work for me [especially after adding a delay...find the thread on that one] but I haven't tried it yet.
In summary I am very happy with the Ooma cost/performance and would recommend it heartily to anyone with good & stable internet service.
Customer Review: Ooma Setup was easy.
Summary: 5 Stars
Here is what I have experience so far with the ooma setup. In one word: easy. I first had to register online before I hooked up the hub. That took 15 mins. Then I hooked up the hub. That took 15 mins, mainly it was just figuring out how to run the extra cables and where to plug the hub into. They then said it would take several minutes for the hub to be ready. That took several hours. There is an OOMA tab on the hub that lights up Red or Blue. Once it is Blue, that means it is good, but mine went from Red to Blue most of the first night. The next morning, it was Blue and I've never seen it Red again. I am wondering if there was some sort of update the hub needed and maybe that is why it took longer.
I hooked up the "Scout" next. You need a scout for every phone that is NOT part of an expandable system. For an expandable system, you hook the base into the OOMA Hub. The only problem with not hooking up a scout, you will not know if you have voice mail unless you go into the room that has the hub. In my case, that is upstairs. So I hooked the Scout up in the kitchen. That took 5 seconds. What you have to do is run a phone cord from the OOMA Hub to a wall jack. Then for the Scout, you hook the Scout to a phone jack. Then a phone to the Scout. The scout has a OOMA tab as well and it went Blue in 5 seconds. Both of the phones work. I have not hooked up my expandable system to the hub yet as I am waiting for the porting.
Now that I got it all setup and it seems to be working, I decided to do the porting. I had to call OOMA to do it. I waited for only 5 min for someone to pick up. It takes about 3 weeks, they said. Mainly because then have to send a permission letter that I have to sign and send back with a copy of my phone bill. You would think they could do this online somehow. Oh well. When the porting is done, they cancel your phone service and send you an email letting you know the porting is done. The porting cost a one time $40 fee, or if you sign up for their "premiere package"($100/yr or $13/month), the $40 porting fee is waived. So you can look at it as you are getting the premiere package for $60 for the first year. I did this. I am not sure if I will keep the premiere or not. You get a second line(I don't need one), a blacklist option(who cares with Caller ID), multiple ring tones(whippie) and call forwarding(this would be neat).
I have made a few calls and the quality is good. I would rate it as the same or better than a cell phone.
I have Comcast Cable Internet, 6 mb/s speed. I would recommed this product. I am not an employee of OOMA.
UPDATE: I sent in my porting request on 1/4/2009 through email. I just received an email(1/26) stating that my port will be completed by 1/29. YEA! So OOMA's 3-4 week estimate on porting is accurate. I can't wait to ditch the phone bill.
Customer Review: So far, I'm thrilled
Summary: 5 Stars
I read the reviews about the awful technical support and the long wait for number porting, so I waited until after 11/1 to purchase this (so that I could return it in January after a long trial as Amazon has an extended return policy for the Xmas season). Well, no issues so far. The hub setup was a piece of cake. I did get confused on the Scout setup and had to call customer support. To my surprise, they answered immediately and my problem was addressed within 30 seconds (I had plugged the Scout into the wrong port). Here are a couple of points that are - in my opinion - impossible to garner from their documentation:
You can connect an unlimited number of phones using one or more splitters (you can buy multi-port splitters at Home Depot or Lowes among others for a very reasonable price, and if your house was built after 1995 you probably already have one in the wiring system). Feed the "Phone" port from the ooma hub into the input port on the splitter and all of your phones will work fine. No special features, but you can receive and make calls like any basic landline phone. Feed the "Wall" port (which I think should be called the "Scout" port) into the port for the phone line that is connected to the Scout. I haven't done it yet (I have only one Scout), but I'm told that you can split this line also if you want multiple Scouts. The reason you want a Scout is so that you can have voicemail access from a machine that isn't at the location of your hub (which is likely in a utility room as it is where your Internet enters the house and gets split). Otherwise, you don't need a Scout. An unless you want to access the voicemail from more than one location, you don't need more than one Scout (and the system comes with one).
I set up the system with a temporary number (very easy to do online) and ordered porting for my existing number to ooma (I think that was around $40). Then I connected the hub "Phone" port to the feed to my in-house splitter and confirmed that all phones worked. For now, I have backed it down to my home office phone on the temporary ooma number and the other phones have been reconnected to the landline. This allows me to confirm that ooma works the way I need it to and still receive calls on our regular home phone number while waiting for the porting process to be completed (I'm told it will take about 4 weeks). At that point - assuming no issues - I'll switch all the phones to ooma and cancel the landline service.
I haven't tried any ooma Premier services at this point: I'm not sure that there is anything there that I need. If I need an "instant second line", I'll pick up my cell phone. I also have not looked at the online stuff: I was really only looking to replace a basic landline connection.
I hope this helps: I'll try to remember to update it if I experience any major changes (either positive or negative).
Customer Review: No outages. Best VOIP since 2002. 1 year update.
Summary: 5 Stars
January 2010 update
FIXES ITSELF!
My old VOIP company if service went down, we would have to unpower the router,
call the company -Viatalk- and they would say check your router settings. OOMA had one 4 hour outage I think in May? and it FIXED ITSELF. The service came back up without us doing anything.
That was the only outage in a year!!! We didn't even know about it, read about it online:)
My 80 year old parents have had this for a year.
Crystal clear voice on both sides.
No outages to speak of like Viatalk VOIP service had.
Ooma is great! Best of ALL the VOIP I have tried since 2002.
For those reading about problems setting up with the company- I had no problems.
work with them, give it a chance. Make sure your current phone service is not BLOCKED
to changes. Call your current provider.
Bought for $220, sold the scout for $40. So it only cost $180.
July 2009 update. Ooma still working great! One minor hiccup a few months ago that lasted only a few hours and we didn't even know about it.
Viatalk would have told me to check my router, settings, blah blah blah and I'd be down for days. Not so with Ooma- it fixes itself.
Did I mention it's FREE now? Yep no bills since January.
After using VOIP since 2002. I have to say this is the best I have used.
Packet8 was ok in 2003.
Viatalk was ok then got horrible-down frequently. Have to be insane to pay for Viatalk.
Tips - I have Comcast cable internet. I plugged in Ooma on the back of my router NOT in between my rounter and modem like they say in literature. The rep confirmed this to me that it is better after your router.
Remember this is a FREE phone after you buy it. No bills ever. Thus probably why it is the same few customer reps I am talking and emailing with for the porting etc. Give them a chance. Many 1 star reviewers seem to be complaining about things as simple as not calling during business hours-If you do this Ooma puts you on hold, I don't know why.
Anyway I had no problem setting it up other than having to switch Ooma from after the modem to plugging Ooma into my router instead.
I set this up for my parents who are retired and no problems so far. Great call clarity too.
For the people who are being told they are backlogged on doing porting. All I can say is sorry. It took the 4 weeks for me and I started porting about January 12th. This is also about the time they started to really promote Ooma and carry it in retail stores like Best Buy which is where I got mine. So I guess this means they got a lot of business. And why not? What other phone can you buy for $199-$220 and NEVER have another phone bill? Give it a chance, it is popular.