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

I spent a lot of time reading reviews about Ooma, and reading the forum pages on Ooma's website before and after purchasing Ooma. The general impression I received was that the vast majority of people are very satisfied, and the problems mostly had to do with poor customer service, or people that didn't do all their homework before buying. And now after two months of using the service, plus ordering a 2nd Ooma system for my business, I can say that I would rate the product 4 3/4 stars (nothing is flawlessly perfect, but overall I had to go with the 5 star over the 4). And incidentally, it is very interesting to me to see that 2/3rds of the ratings here are 5 stars.

We ordered our first Ooma system for our home. It took about 4 weeks for the number to be ported. Not only are we not paying a phone bill now, but yesterday Qwest even sent us a refund check! One nice thing I recently thought of is that Ooma works transparently: in other words, once it is fully up and running, you don't even think of your phone system as different at all. Everything just works!

I'll try to list some of the COOL features that are better than our previous phone company (besides no phone bill!):

1. The hub and scout system working like an answering machine. We will get home, and see the "play" button blinking red, and all we have to do is push it to retrieve messages. Before, we had the blinking light on our phone, and had to call in to get our message (no answering machine)
2. When listening to messages, if you don't want to listen to the whole thing, we just push the "trash" icon to instantly delete it. Before, we had to listen to the whole thing before having the option to delete.
3. Missed calls are emailed to us, so if we are away from home, we simply log into Ooma lounge to hear them.
4. Calling outside the country very cheap. So far, we've only called Canada, and I think it is something like 1.5 cents/minute.

The cool things I look forward to using at work with the premiere service are:

1. multi-ring; for when I'm away from my office, and the phone will ring to my cell phone simultaneously--and I can choose to answer or let it go to voicemail.
2. community blacklist, and other spam controls.

One of the cool future-features is some kind of auto forwarding of calls when the system detects the internet is down.


As for voice quality, I have noticed that it is not perfect, but it is as good or better than our previous phone company. The thing that seems to make the most difference are the types of phones people are using. Sometimes I will hear a little crackle, or a slight echo, or a slight delay. This seems to happen a little more when talking long distance, or calling to a cell phone. And like I say, it really isn't much different than our previous phone company. And in general, I simply don't notice it, as I guess I am used to a few imperfections here and there from every phone system I've ever used!

As for setup, one thing that caused a little trouble was my NOT understanding that if you have DSL, you have to make sure to have your phone company put it on its OWN LINE (different than the phone line) before you port your number. Otherwise, when the phone company cancels your phone line, it will cancel your DSL as well! Fortunately, I read about this before our port was completed. But next, I didn't realize that with the DSL being on a new line, I ALSO needed to reset my router for the new DSL! The phone company started our new DSL on a Thursday, then canceled the old DSL Friday, so we didn't know about resetting our router until we were without internet service!! So the thing to do, is not only disassociate your DSL from your phone line, but as soon as it happens, get on the phone with your DSL provider, and get your DSL modem setup for the new service. I hope this makes sense. For us, it meant about 2 days with no internet. Maybe for some, the phone company automatically updates the DSL modem, so you don't have to be without internet for a few days!

Lastly, while it's good to read about all the complaints, and bad experiences people have with any product, remember that for every one complaint, there are probably hundreds of people with no complaints! After we worked out these few glitches, we hardly even go to the forums for help, and we have no need for customer service, because it just works! And we are saving approx. $40/month (it will be paid for in about 5 months!).

Good luck to all.

MikeGet more detail about ooma Core VoIP Phone System with No Monthly Phone Service Bills.