Discount ooma Core VoIP Phone System with No Monthly Phone Service Bills

01/20/2009
QUICK NOTE: Jason M. Page has a great review above my review...you should read it also.

UPDATED 12/17/2008
We dropped DSL and moved OOMA's to Cable Modem Service...

ORIGINAL REVIEW:
Hello All,
I bought an OOMA about 8+ months ago with one scout (added a 2nd system later on). Here is our setup.
1. NO LANDLINE required.
2. Using with Cable Broadband on Comcast.
3. Two OOMA Hubs (personal and business) and 2 OOMA Scouts.
4. 2 x 2 Line Panasonic Cordless system to use dual line capabilities.
5. Wired into home wiring so as to avoid unsightly clutter of hardware.

FIRST SYSTEM (Personal Use):
The OOMA hub is plugged in to our Apple Extreme Basetation, out of sight out of mind. Gave the OOMA internet access through the router and voila...phone service is live. NO land line is required. I know OOMA says you can use your existing land line, but it is not a necessity to use this system. They will issue you a new number or port your number over if you do not have or want a land line.

We took line one of the OOMA hub (marked home) and wired it into our home wiring (line 1 - our home is wired for 2 lines)....again very easy and no problem - the phones in the house starting working at once.

Challenge - we have a 2line phone system - so how can you use OOMA with a two line system and use the 2 line features of OOMA.

Since line one was wired and working we needed to get line 2 wired. I took the line 2 out of the ooma hub (marked WALL), wired into home wiring (line 2 jack in the basement), and used the ooma scout to complete the phone line network this system creates.

Line one was already going into the panasonic, so the scout now allowed us to plug in line 2. Voila - 2 lines on a 2 line system with one scout and one telephone number. Its like call waiting on steroids.

NOTE: You can also get multiple numbers with different ring patterns to make this more effective.

The panasonic system has 4 handsets - so now no matter where we are we have a 2 line phone system without the need for more scouts.

The scout itself does everything the OOMA hub does in a small package....so its easy to put in the kitchen and or bedroom and have it look somewhat decent.

SECOND SYSTEM:
Simply used near a telephone in the basement/home office...no fancy setup...works great with a 2 line Panasonic System.

I hope this helps you in deciding to purchase this system. Please let it be known that I am a consumer...not affiliated with OOMA....I simply LOVE this product. I no longer have monthly bills and thus we have recovered the cost of this system already.

UPDATE 12/17/08
Still going strong. WE now have two ooma hubs and two scouts at home. One for personal use and one for business. Works great...no complaints yet. Our broadband is now all cable - about 10-12mbps down (comcast) and 1.5mbps up...sometimes more on down/up in burst mode.

OOMA has also added a bunch of new features for people on the premier plan...ie. community black lists. Basically a GREAT feature.....they have created a blacklist that is shared by all members so that we can all contribute to block useless telemarketing calls etc.....you send them directly to voicemail or block them all together. AWESOME!.

People have emailed me and asked if this system works for faxing....I dont know that I can answer that since I have not really tried sending/receiving faxes with it. Please do chime in and let us all know if it works.

I have also had questions about what I think of OOMA and the business model...while I do not know the specifics, I am not afraid of using it as there seems to be enough people contacting me about purchasing it...I feel that it will be around long enough for everyone to recover the cost of the system.

If you have specific questions, feel free to ask me via email at tchachra@yahoo.com. I will try and help....and just to be clear..I am not affiliated with OOMA at all....just a consumer via AMAZON!

QUICK NOTE: (THANKS DAVE)
It is important to understand that you should disconnect the wiring from the local telephone company coming into your house before you wire any VOIP device into your home wiring. Basically the phone company wiring carries current into your house and OOMA also outputs some level of current to your phone lines....too much could cause an issue.
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