Ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone System: $109.99 AR @staples

[Pardus]

Staples Link:
http://www.staples.com/Ooma-Telo-VoI...product_985070
Rebate Link, 06-02-2013 through 06-29-2013:
https://www.stapleseasyrebates.com/promocenter/staples/promotion.html?sku=985070
Homepage:
http://www.ooma.com/
Review:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PCg5U0QIyMg

Model 100-0201-100. $134.68 @amazon

Ooma lets you make free U.S local and long distance calls over the Internet.

Just plug your high-speed Internet connection and normal home phone into Ooma, and you’re ready to call anywhere in the US. And unlike other VOIP systems, there’s no need for a PC or a headset—just use your phone like you normally would.

Free U.S. calling and low international rates*
Caller-ID, call-waiting, and 911 service included
Secure encrypted phone calls ensure privacy with outstanding voice quality – just like a landline
Flexibility to keep a landline back up in case of Internet outage
My Ooma web portal to view call logs and set calling preferences
Extremely low-cost international rates starting at pennies per minute
Easy to set up in just minutes
A new phone number from any calling area in the U.S.
The option to keep your existing number for a one-time charge ($39.99)
A 60-day free trial of Ooma Premier (our suite of enhanced calling features) $9.99/month or $119/year after free trial!
A 30-day money-back guarantee and an extendable one-year warranty

*Pay only applicable taxes and fees. Unlimited calls are subject to normal residential usage limitations. Visit www.ooma.com/termsandconditions for details.

What's in the Box?
Ooma Telo
Ethernet cable
Phone cable
AC adapter

 

[Zap]

Nice. I think I paid more for a refurb. I pay for the premium service, ends up under $15/mo after taxes/fees. Still much cheaper than my old landline. I've had it for about a year and a half. Has always worked as long as it has electricity and our internet service was working.

 

[NickelPlate]

How does this compare to Magicjack Plus? That's what I'm currently using and have been satisfied with it for the most part.

 

[kmmatney]

Compared to Magic Jack, and I think Ooma behaves more like a traditional land-line phone. I know the original magic jack required a computer, but I guess that is no longer the case. If you are already happy with MagicJack, then there may not be reason to changes. I've been happy with Ooma, also having the premium service, and it really acts almost exactly like my old landline, but with better features. The things I like about Ooma:

* Was able to easily port our old landline number, which we had for 15 years.
* Works fine with all our regular phones through-out the house (I have a cordless 5-phone set, plus several individual phones, connected
* Automatic emailing of voice mail (as an MP3 file).
* Three way calling (I don't use this, but my daughter does)
* You get an Automatic 2nd phone line, if you have the Ooma handset. I received the Ooma handset as a free gift with the premiere service.
* Ability to have a blacklist for spam callers, and they also have a community blacklist that you can use. We still get a few robo-callers, but a lot less than we used to.
* Caller ID and Call waiting
* 911 service (nice to have)

So I'm paying about $15.40/mo for premium service, but if I dropped down to normal service the fee would go down to $3.40/mo. I'm OK with paying the higher fee for now, to get the premier features. Voice quality has always been very good.

 

[SunRey]

Thank You!

 

[mikeford]

When I last looked at OOMA vs others;

Pro
Medium cost, enhanced services.
Maybe better integration with a land line, which I can't see being without just yet.

Con
Cable is very aggressively bundling phone services, so cost savings my not be much.
Hardware especially wireless phones not great quality.
Market and products continue to evolve making hardware ownership questionable.

 

[Pulsar]

When I last looked at OOMA vs others;

Pro
Medium cost, enhanced services.
Maybe better integration with a land line, which I can't see being without just yet.

Con
Cable is very aggressively bundling phone services, so cost savings my not be much.
Hardware especially wireless phones not great quality.
Market and products continue to evolve making hardware ownership questionable.

With Ooma, we paid tax. That's it. $3 a month. Even aggressively bundled phone can't really touch that.

I'm not sure what you mean about not great quality. Ooma has excellent voice quality, just like any VOIP service.

I'm not sure what your last statement even means...

We loved Ooma. Great price, no hassles. The only con from our end was that it was a bit of a pain to port our number out when we lost good broadband speeds here.

 

[Pheran]

With Ooma, we paid tax. That's it. $3 a month. Even aggressively bundled phone can't really touch that.

I'm not sure what you mean about not great quality. Ooma has excellent voice quality, just like any VOIP service.

I'm not sure what your last statement even means...

We loved Ooma. Great price, no hassles. The only con from our end was that it was a bit of a pain to port our number out when we lost good broadband speeds here.

I agree with Pulsar, that con list doesn't make any sense. I've been using Ooma for a few years now. It works very well and I'm only paying about $4 a month in taxes.

Also, I don't trust any VoIP service that considers 911 to be some kind of optional feature. That is just asking for trouble.

 

[RossMAN]

We finally joined the Ooma cult a few months ago when refurbs were $99.

My only regret is not buying it sooner. Despite the $3.50/mo in taxes we pay, it's boringly awesome, reliable and great call quality.

How fax friendly is Ooma? We're hoping to use it with this.

 

[Wyndru]

Been using ooma for over 3 years. It's been awesome, and I've saved a ton of money (I was with Vonage before that).

This is a great price on this unit. I bought the Telo when it first came out (I think I paid $200 for it) and I thought it would be a cheap piece of hardware that would die shortly after I got my money's worth, but it's been perfect. The telo replaced the ooma hub, which a lot of people were really happy with too, so they have a decent track record with their hardware.

Ooma has had a couple of outages (I think literally 2 in my area over 3 years, both fixed within hours)...but they let you know on their website forums, and I think now they even have twitter updates too.

Definitely was a great choice for us, no messing around with google voice numbers, or high VOIP costs from Vonage and ISP provided. 911 is included and they ported my vonage number over.

Here is the link to verify how much it will cost, we pay less than $4 per month (taxes).
https://go.ooma.com/tax_calculator

We finally joined the Ooma cult a few months ago when refurbs were $99.

My only regret is not buying it sooner. Despite the $3.50/mo in taxes we pay, it's boringly awesome, reliable and great call quality.

Didn't you use an OBi110 previously? If so, how does it compare to that (quality/reliability). I'm assuming it was easier to set up.

How fax friendly is Ooma? We're hoping to use it with this.

I have an old HP all in one and it works perfectly, nothing needed to be changed. If you run into any issues, their forums have a ton of tricks to get it working more reliably. I've seen some threads with suggestions, but for most it's just plug and play.

 

[mikeford]

With Ooma, we paid tax. That's it. $3 a month. Even aggressively bundled phone can't really touch that.

I'm not sure what you mean about not great quality. Ooma has excellent voice quality, just like any VOIP service.

I'm not sure what your last statement even means...

We loved Ooma. Great price, no hassles. The only con from our end was that it was a bit of a pain to port our number out when we lost good broadband speeds here.

Cable lists phone costs at crazy $20 to $30 a month, but includes it in some bundle packages with TV and internet with a very small cost difference between packages with and without phone. Latest deal we got they included the phone service free for a year. The value of not owning the hardware isn't nil either, any issues and I get a new box no questions asked or cost to me.

Quality is in reference the the phone hardware, many reviews say its cheap.

VOIP is still evolving, so I don't place a real long "useful" life on any current product, nor do I think its certain which players will survive after another 5 or 10 years, or how regulations may change. ATT can't sit on its hands totally regulated and lose market share to nearly unregulated, too many subsidized users depend on landline service and that has political clout.

 

[Pheran]

Quality is in reference the the phone hardware, many reviews say its cheap.

There's zero reason to use Ooma phone hardware, you can use whatever phones you want, so that's not very relevant.

 

[Wyndru]

Cable lists phone costs at crazy $20 to $30 a month, but includes it in some bundle packages with TV and internet with a very small cost difference between packages with and without phone. Latest deal we got they included the phone service free for a year.

I currently have a 2 year contract with FIOS and the phone is free, I still use Ooma instead. You have to consider that this is an introductory contract savings that you are getting, eventually it will increase, and it's usually no less than $20 when you break it down. I think my friend is actually paying closer to $40 from TWC.

The value of not owning the hardware isn't nil either, any issues and I get a new box no questions asked or cost to me.

Quality is in reference the the phone hardware, many reviews say its cheap.

My family hasn't had an issue in the 3+ years we have had the boxes, and I haven't seen too many reviews that says it's cheap (although I haven't really been looking). It's a pretty nice design, with a soft touch face, I don't know what could really break on it, on less you are maybe moving it around a lot.

One thing I hate about ISP provided hardware is that you don't know what the install will entail. I never even wanted the FIOS phone, but the total bundle was cheaper that way for 2 years so I agreed. They still insisted on installing a bunch of boxes in my house...I think there is a UPS for the phone, some other box inside I'm not sure of, and a giant box outside on the side of the house. They drilled like 2 holes to run coax into my house, 1 specifically to hide all of those phone boxes in the closet. I was a little unhappy, especially since I never had any intention of using it, and pleaded with them to skip the phone install.

VOIP is still evolving, so I don't place a real long "useful" life on any current product, nor do I think its certain which players will survive after another 5 or 10 years, or how regulations may change. ATT can't sit on its hands totally regulated and lose market share to nearly unregulated, too many subsidized users depend on landline service and that has political clout.

VOIP has been around for over a decade in corporations, and even private household voip has been available for almost a decade. Vonage came on the scene in 2004 and Ooma started offering the hub in 2007. I doubt anything major will change. I think you will just see more competitive pricing as more people transition over. At the very least I'm sure you can be confident that you will save the cost of the box, since it only takes less than a year to hit those kind of savings. That was all I was hoping for when I switched, and that happened a long time ago.

 

[Mitch101]

Been an OOMA customer for about 2.5 years and its been great. At first I had an echo issue but that has since been resolved with limiting my upload speed to 640meg for the audio on outgoing calls.

Ooma does very good when I have two kids playing online games/youtube and wife and I are surfing the web. Great job of prioritizing packets or good internet connection I dont know but it works.

Customer service - EXCELLENT and I get a person who is knowledgeable every time. I even got to talk to a real engineer once when I had the audio issue and him and I were playing around with different bios on the device. Great experience every time.

Im a premium subscriber so I pay $120.00 a year and have two phone lines.

Ive blacklisted all those annoying DirectTv/Cable/annoying donation companies too. Its easy to get rid of them forever I dont recall the last time I got an annoying tele marketer.

I also just bought the Ooma Linx (the linx allows me to use any store bought phone system as a second line it also runs through my fax machine which FAXES WORK GREAT on Ooma) I paid extra for fax service on Vonage and it never worked. Vonage is junk. The only other company that made faxes work this well was SunRocket but Ooma is every bit as good as they were and better. Yes I hate faxing its antique but im building a house so sadly people want faxes sent.

Magic Jack I read spys on your PC habits.

 

[rivethead]

Be warned: Ooma doesn't always work as a fax line. My Dad spent two days with Ooma CS trying to get it to work. I was in his office when the Ooma CSR told us "faxes don't really work very well over VOIP.....not sure what else we can try".

We gave up.

 

[Mitch101]

Be warned: Ooma doesn't always work as a fax line. My Dad spent two days with Ooma CS trying to get it to work. I was in his office when the Ooma CSR told us "faxes don't really work very well over VOIP.....not sure what else we can try".

We gave up.

Faxes are working great for me are you using a newer or older ooma device? Mine is running through the linx unit maybe thats making a difference. Its been receiving faxes great too.

 

[rivethead]

He has the Ooma Telo. Could send a fax no problem, but it simply would not receive. His fax machine (an older HP) would hang up after about 10 seconds of incoming fax transmission. Consistently.

 

[Wyndru]

He has the Ooma Telo. Could send a fax no problem, but it simply would not receive. His fax machine (an older HP) would hang up after about 10 seconds of incoming fax transmission. Consistently.

I think they added a keep alive option through the my ooma page that fixes this. I'll check when I get home to see where it is.

 

[Mitch101]

Im using a Samsung All in one unit. Some SX something laser print, scan, fax unit.

Linx >> Fax Machine >> Uniden 2 unit handset.

Sorry to hear hes having an issue nothing worse than people still wanting faxes. He may want to try one of those online fax services.

 

[CuriousMike]

We finally joined the Ooma cult 1.5 years ago..

My only regret is not buying it sooner. Despite the $3.50/mo in taxes we pay, it's boringly awesome, reliable and great call quality.

Just about my exact impression -

 

[kmmatney]

One thing I should mention is that if you have DSL internet and phone, if you port your number to Ooma then the DSL/Phone company will often suspend your entire account when your number is ported. To get uninterrupted service, you have to perform a precarious dance of switching your internet service to a "naked" DSL account just before your number ports over. Reading the Ooma forums beforehand, the transition worked OK for some people, and others had a real frustrating time with the Phone/DSL company. Of course the phone/DSL companies don't ike anyone to switch to VOIP.

I decided not to worry about all this hassle, and switched from DSL to cable internet, with a month of overlap when my number was ported. I got in on a 12-month $29.99/mo cable-internet deal with free modem, so the transition saved money (at least for the first 12 months) and was painless.

 

[Rassi]

I've had Ooma for just over 4 years, so we got in before they added the taxes, and we're grandfathered in with NO fees monthly. We have saved so much on our now "free" landline, even over vonage that we used before. Only restriction is we can't upgrade to their latest hardware without losing our grandfather exemption, but there's no real reason to change. Love the service, and you can't beat free!

 

[rivethead]

One thing I should mention is that if you have DSL internet and phone, if you port your number to Ooma then the DSL/Phone company will often suspend your entire account when your number is ported. To get uninterrupted service, you have to perform a precarious dance of switching your internet service to a "naked" DSL account just before your number ports over. Reading the Ooma forums beforehand, the transition worked OK for some people, and others had a real frustrating time with the Phone/DSL company. Of course the phone/DSL companies don't ike anyone to switch to VOIP.

I did this dance with AT&T. It wasn't too bad - you just have to plan ahead and be very clear to your provider about what you're trying to do (ignoring all the counter offers and bundles they throw back at you).

 

[hellfire88]

Does anyone have experience with both MagicJack Plus (seems quite a bit cheaper) and Ooma?

We just need a basic landline for home use since cellphone reception is a bit spotty where we live. We don't need any "advanced features".

Thanks.

 

[NickelPlate]

Does anyone have experience with both MagicJack Plus (seems quite a bit cheaper) and Ooma?

We just need a basic landline for home use since cellphone reception is a bit spotty where we live. We don't need any "advanced features".

Thanks.

None with Ooma but I've been using MJ+ now for about a year and a half for my home business line as I frequently make long distance calls. I've been pretty happy with it and it has worked out really well. Bought a 2nd one for my residential line.

Definitely get the plus version though as the original wasn't well reviewed. The plus version doesn't require a computer except for initial setup. After that you just plug it into the wall, your router and phone and your done.

It isn't perfect but then again neither was the landline service from my cable provider. The most reliable IMHO was POTS from the telephone company. Also the MJ website and account management site is the most God-Awful-annoying-in-your-face-buy-more-stuff-from-us website in the world. Just be warned.