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

My Ooma is the "core system", which included the hub and a Scout unit. Both devices are very nice looking, a clean design that looks good in any room/decor. Plus they are not big at all, the hub being the size of a small book, and the Scout being about the size of a Blackberry device. The buttons are backlit when activated with a soft pinkish/red light.

What's in the box:
* Ooma hub and AC adapter
* Ooma Scout and AC adapter
* CAT5 cable
* Phone cables
* User manual and installation guide

My setup is:

The Ooma unit and Oooma Scout.
Panasonic DECT 6.0 phones - TG9334T
Verizon DSL.
NetGear 11B router and Westell DSL modem.

Why am I telling you about my carrier setup? I'll get to that in a minute.

What I like about Ooma...it took me just minutes to set it up, plugging it into my router and DSL modem, and another phone jack in another room for the Scout. Set up was a breeze and all of the ports are clearly labeled (Wall, Phone, Modem, Home, Power) About all you need to provide are an internet connection and a phone handset. After the simple setup, I was able to pick a phone number on Ooma's website and start using the system immediately. I also like the sound quality. Although I've never had VOIP at home, I use it at work. I found the Ooma to be clear and crisp, just as good as my landline. I used the same handsets so I could evaluate apples and apples.

Also, it's nice to pay once for the Ooma hardware, and as long as you have an internet connection (which you are paying for anyway) and don't plan to buy any international calling service from Ooma, well then your VOIP phone service is essentially free! That's hard to beat. I don't use Ooma for international calls but the rates on their site appeared very competitive. You do have to pre-pay for international minutes.

You may be curious how you know when the Ooma line is ringing as opposed to your landline, if you are using similar/same phone handsets. Simple, Ooma has its own ringtone.

I also love the built-in features such as caller ID, call-waiting, and voicemail, things your phone company charges you extra for.

As far as other function features your phone line might support, such as faxing, Ooma makes no guarantee faxing will work, which is because faxing does not always work well on VOIP, so its a technology issue, not a product issue. In my case, it did work, just by hooking up my printer/fax as I already used it, on a splitter with a phone I have an HP all-in-one that's a few years old, a 2400 model, and the faxing worked fine on Ooma after several faxes, incoming and outgoing.

Calls to 4-1-1 apparently generate a charge to you from Ooma. That is what it says in my user manual; I haven't tried to call 4-1-1 yet.

A note in general - I still have a landline. If you are going to shut off your landline and replace it with Ooma, just keep in mind the simple rule about VOIP - its on a PC/internet system - so if you lose power to your home or your internet connection, you can lose your phone service until power is restored. So if you are shutting your landline make sure you have cell phones and/or a UPS backup for your PC, router, etc.

Ooma also offers something they advertise as "Instant Second Line". The Ooma unit is able to handle this second line, but you'd have to pay Ooma for it.

Now, back to why I mentioned my carrier specs, and the one thing I am leery about with Ooma. Resources. Namely your internet resources. The unit needs only 256kbps upload speed to operate, although Ooma recommends at least 384kbps. Doesn't sound unreasonable, but you need to understand that the Ooma hub is essentially a gateway, so like many "peer to peer" concepts, your bandwidth gets used to route other users' data (in this case Ooma calls). Your system can become what is known as a supernode, such as the concept used by Skype for VOIP or LimeWire for P2P Data Sharing. I do want to stress I have just started using Ooma and haven't seen any impact to my bandwidth, but you do need to understand the infrastructure and how your bandwidth could be used.

All in all, this is an exciting product which works as advertised and I consider it a stable device and system. After your initial purchase you have free phone service, with the only other costs being the optional calls to Information, international calls, and/or a second line (Ooma Premier). I like it - a lot.
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