ooma Core VoIP Phone System with No Monthly Phone Service Bills Get it now!

I've been using Ooma for exactly one month and couldn't be happier. I'm a former Vonage evangelist so to speak. I was with Vonage for nearly seven years--from August 2002 until May 15th, 2009--when my Vonage number was ported over to Ooma. I really liked Vonage and it was hard to say goodbye. But "free phone service" with Ooma was too good to pass up, especially after having tested Ooma's services for a week. I looked into Ooma over a year ago. But at the time I believe Ooma was still charging over four hundred for the equipment. I've read many mixed reviews of both Ooma and Vonage. The quality of each service is dependent upon ones Internet provider and home network setup. I read the articles/blogs on Ooma and their "supposed" Ponzi scheme business model. Actually, their modified business model, with their premier package (which has a per month service charge) just might work and prove the skeptics wrong. I'm hoping/betting that is the case. I figure I will break even after 11 months of Ooma service--comparing my Ooma start-up fees to my monthly Vonage charges. Every month thereafter that Ooma stays in business is just icing on the cake. The only risk after month eleven will be the possibility of losing my phone number if Ooma were to go out of business. However, if Ooma did go under, I suspect there would be a "grace period" in which I could port my number to another provider. Even if I lost my number, it would only take a few minutes to blast an email to all my contacts to let them know my new number. Obviously, I'm hoping that Ooma is in business for a long, long time. I had excellent call quality with Vonage. Ooma's call quality is excellent as well. The Ooma Hub has built in Quality Of Service (QOS) so it is able to prioritize voice traffic over other network traffic. You can also put the Hub "behind" a router if you'd like. I'd suggest you use a router which has QOS so you can ensure your calls are crystal clear. My internet service is 5 MB down, 2 MB up. I ran some extensive tests using Ooma--simultaneously doing the following: utilizing two PCs on my network to create network traffic by downloading streaming video from Hulu or Youtube, downloading huge 50+ MB files, uploading 50+ MB files and browsing the Internet while talking on my Ooma line. I did all this with the Ooma Hub behind my router, which has QOS. The calls were crystal clear. To use the popular phrase "you can hear a pin drop" would be an adequate description regarding my call experience.

A few things to note:

**Outbound call limit is 3000 minutes per month. I've read mixed reviews on whether Ooma actually charges me for each call after the 3000 minute threshold vs. giving me a "warning" of the overage. However, I'm not too worried about it. Looking over my Vonage invoices the past six months we didn't even come close to 3000 minutes for all calls. So, for me this is a non-issue. Besides, since my wife is the one that will be using the Ooma line the most, if she approaches the limit, I'll have to have lay down the law with her and let her know that spending so much time on the phone isn't helping her complete all the other items I have on her "to do" list. :)

**My porting process took 2.5 weeks. It was a flawless experience on the Ooma side. However, there was one hiccup on the Vonage side. Once the number was ported, I had to contact Vonage multiple times for them to "release/delete the number" from their system so that when Vonage customers called me the call would go through, instead of my number appearing as a disconnected number to the caller. Other than that, the port process was painless. Ooma support kept me updated throughout the whole process via multiple emails.

**I've called Ooma support a few times. The reps were friendly and knowledgeable. The average wait time was 1-3 minutes. That's better than my wait time with Verizon/GTE back in the late 90s. I hated calling Verizon/GTE back in the day. It was torture to say the least. Maybe that's why I despise traditional landline service and all their fees/taxes.

**You do NOT need the Ooma Scout to hook up multiple phones to the Ooma service if you plan on having only one Ooma line and no landline. You can simply run a phone line from the Ooma Hub into your existing home wiring/jack and the dial tone will be sent to all the phones in the house. I sold my Scout on Ebay to defray my start-up cost. There were quite a few bidders on Ebay to say the least.

**The Ooma Hub is hybrid router/answering machine. It's actually kind of nice to have an sleek answering machine at your fingertips that integrates with Ooma's website which displays placed/missed calls and voicemails. I love that fact that I get an email AND a text message when I receive a voice mail with the Ooma service. The Ooma Scout acts as an answering machine as well. So, if you want to have multiple answering machines throughout the house (with no landline and no 2nd line with Ooma) the Scout can fill that need. As mentioned above, I sold my Scout. Though a second answering machine would have been nice, I didn't want to pay for the electricity to run it. Call me cheap!

**Last but not least, the Ooma call quality/experience passed the dreaded "wife test." Back in 2002 it took some "prying" to get her to switch to Vonage. But once switched, she loved the service. I must note that in the beginning with Vonage we did have a few hiccups (issues similar to a dropped/spotty cell phone call) but after the first few months our service was near impeccable and up to par with a landline and a thousand times better than the call quality of a cell phone. As a side note, I did try the Magic Jack. I never had too many problems with it. However, the call quality was not as good as Ooma and Vonage. Plus my wife got complaints from callers that they had a hard time hearing her. I didn't like the fact that I had to leave my laptop running 24/7 for Magic Jack to work. So, needless to say Magic Jack didn't pass the "wife test." In hind sight, I'm glad I'm with Ooma. Let the service changes begin. I'm sure all my Vonage friends--that I got started on Vonage--will be switching soon to Ooma--as I'll continue to sing praises to Ooma unless their service dwindles or heaven forbid they go out of business. Let's all hope that's not the case. I'd love to make a subsequent post to this forum in 2016 that I'm still with Ooma and loving every free month of service. My only regret with Ooma was that I didn't switch sooner to their service, once they dropped the start-up price to the two hundred dollar range.
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