Bill V
Well-Known Member
So I recently completed upgrading our internet service, phone service, and entertainment center. I know in the past, some people here had inquired about Ooma, which I decided to include in this new system. So I thought I'd pass along some info.
Got the Ooma from Costco for somewhere around $180, if I remember correctly. Hookup was simple--although as I was doing the steps on the installation instruction sheet, I missed one that, for some reason, they had in a significantly smaller font than the rest. In that step, you go online, set up your account data there, and enter the serial number of your Ooma device on your account. I had done everything but the serial number--so when I first started up the Ooma device, with it properly connected to the phone and to the internet, I wasn't getting a dial tone. But once I fixed that, everything worked great.
You can choose to get a new phone number when you sign up, or to have a number ported over from another phone line. (Porting costs an additional $40, unless you subscribe to the Ooma Premier service, for which they'll waive the fee.) We're not getting Premier, but we wanted our old phone number, so we paid the $40. Was a bit surprised at how long that took--it was three or four weeks. But during the interim, they give you a temporary number for the Ooma, you can still use the old phone number via the old phone service (you can't shut that down until the port is complete), and they keep you well informed with emailed status updates on the porting process.
So far, I've been impressed with the call quality. The "Ooma ringtone" actually sounds a bit garbled, and every time I hear it, I worry that it's a sign that the call quality will be less than desired. But so far, every time I've used it, the call seems to be crystal clear.
Ooma recommends that their device be wired between your modem and your router. That way, if you are both on the phone and using the internet simultaneously, it can prioritize the phone call for bandwidth purposes, thus making sure the call quality remains high. I don't currently have it wired that way--I have the Ooma plugged into the router. So far, that hasn't been an issue. Then again, that may be because my new internet service is clocking in around 25-30Meg, more than enough to easily handle anything we're doing online and the phone as well. Unless/until we start experiencing any problems, I'm not going to change it.
Back when the first Ooma discussion was happening on this site, a question came up regarding the use of existing home wiring to allow multiple handsets to use the Ooma. Most info seemed to indicate that the way to get a second handset was to buy the special Ooma handset. Well, I can tell you that the instructions inside-the-box clearly confirm what we had already suspected--that you can increase the number of handsets either by plugging in a wireless phone system which connects with multiple wireless handsets, or you can plug the Ooma directly into your wall jack, and in doing so, activate all your home's phone jacks. You need to disconnect the line coming in from your old phone company so that you don't get noise or conflicts from that. But once you do, your entire home phone wiring becomes an Ooma extension. This is what I've done. (The fact that the home builders didn't label their phone lines at the junction box made determination of the incoming carrier line difficult, but I figured it out.)
All in all, I highly recommend this to anyone interested in not ever paying a phone bill again. You pay the one up-front purchase cost, plus the monthly FCC and 911 fees (less than $4 a month), and for domestic calling, that's all you'll ever pay. In our case, the savings weren't huge, because we were bundling internet and phone service. But we did go from paying about $77/month for phone and 3Meg internet service through our phone company (which is the fastest internet service they have, which was a major driver in this decision), to now paying $63/month for internet service which is rated at 10Meg (but consistently clocking at 25-30Meg), plus $4/month for the Ooma FCC/911 fees. Cost savings plus far better internet quality--can't beat that!
Got the Ooma from Costco for somewhere around $180, if I remember correctly. Hookup was simple--although as I was doing the steps on the installation instruction sheet, I missed one that, for some reason, they had in a significantly smaller font than the rest. In that step, you go online, set up your account data there, and enter the serial number of your Ooma device on your account. I had done everything but the serial number--so when I first started up the Ooma device, with it properly connected to the phone and to the internet, I wasn't getting a dial tone. But once I fixed that, everything worked great.
You can choose to get a new phone number when you sign up, or to have a number ported over from another phone line. (Porting costs an additional $40, unless you subscribe to the Ooma Premier service, for which they'll waive the fee.) We're not getting Premier, but we wanted our old phone number, so we paid the $40. Was a bit surprised at how long that took--it was three or four weeks. But during the interim, they give you a temporary number for the Ooma, you can still use the old phone number via the old phone service (you can't shut that down until the port is complete), and they keep you well informed with emailed status updates on the porting process.
So far, I've been impressed with the call quality. The "Ooma ringtone" actually sounds a bit garbled, and every time I hear it, I worry that it's a sign that the call quality will be less than desired. But so far, every time I've used it, the call seems to be crystal clear.
Ooma recommends that their device be wired between your modem and your router. That way, if you are both on the phone and using the internet simultaneously, it can prioritize the phone call for bandwidth purposes, thus making sure the call quality remains high. I don't currently have it wired that way--I have the Ooma plugged into the router. So far, that hasn't been an issue. Then again, that may be because my new internet service is clocking in around 25-30Meg, more than enough to easily handle anything we're doing online and the phone as well. Unless/until we start experiencing any problems, I'm not going to change it.
Back when the first Ooma discussion was happening on this site, a question came up regarding the use of existing home wiring to allow multiple handsets to use the Ooma. Most info seemed to indicate that the way to get a second handset was to buy the special Ooma handset. Well, I can tell you that the instructions inside-the-box clearly confirm what we had already suspected--that you can increase the number of handsets either by plugging in a wireless phone system which connects with multiple wireless handsets, or you can plug the Ooma directly into your wall jack, and in doing so, activate all your home's phone jacks. You need to disconnect the line coming in from your old phone company so that you don't get noise or conflicts from that. But once you do, your entire home phone wiring becomes an Ooma extension. This is what I've done. (The fact that the home builders didn't label their phone lines at the junction box made determination of the incoming carrier line difficult, but I figured it out.)
All in all, I highly recommend this to anyone interested in not ever paying a phone bill again. You pay the one up-front purchase cost, plus the monthly FCC and 911 fees (less than $4 a month), and for domestic calling, that's all you'll ever pay. In our case, the savings weren't huge, because we were bundling internet and phone service. But we did go from paying about $77/month for phone and 3Meg internet service through our phone company (which is the fastest internet service they have, which was a major driver in this decision), to now paying $63/month for internet service which is rated at 10Meg (but consistently clocking at 25-30Meg), plus $4/month for the Ooma FCC/911 fees. Cost savings plus far better internet quality--can't beat that!
