Oooma Phone question?

[Ron3rd]

We're switching over to Ooma phone service and dropping TWC cable. I noticed they have several different black boxes they sell, some with bluetooth, etc. Can someone who has Ooma make a recommendation on what I should go with?

[AJBert]

We got Oooma a few months ago and only wish we had known about it when we first moved up here in the mountains. Cell coverage is spotty at best.

They do sell a lot of bells and whistles to go with the basic box, including various services with monthly charges. All we wanted was a phone without anything else. We still have caller ID and voice mail, which we can check through the laptop anywhere in the world.

We just got a cordless phone and hooked things up. Very easy and simple. The only problem we may have is that we get our internet through them things flying up in the sky and we need power electrical power for everything. Cell phones are now used for backup, which we haven't need them for, or when on the road.

Believe we paid about $90 and pay $4.89 a month.

[Ron3rd]

67Cutlass wrote:
I don't get why spend $129 for Oooma when you can get Basic Talk for $10 for the hardware and $11.99 per month including long distance, caller ID, voice mail - with email notifications.

We've had Basic Talk for over three years. No problems and works great.

BTW Basic Talk is Vonage only much cheaper.

What makes the more expensive Oooma any better?

Ooma can be free with the exception that you pay the goVT taxes, about 5 dollars a month. Their voip boxes can be had for $80 up.

[Snowman9000]

67Cutlass wrote:
I don't get why spend $129 for Oooma when you can get Basic Talk for $10 for the hardware and $11.99 per month including long distance, caller ID, voice mail - with email notifications.

We've had Basic Talk for over three years. No problems and works great.

BTW Basic Talk is Vonage only much cheaper.

What makes the more expensive Oooma any better?

I don't have any of the above, but the answer looks like it's because you only pay once with Oooma. In a year the Basic Talk will cost you more than the Oooma, it looks like.

[67Cutlass]

I don't get why spend $129 for Oooma when you can get Basic Talk for $10 for the hardware and $11.99 per month including long distance, caller ID, voice mail - with email notifications.

We've had Basic Talk for over three years. No problems and works great.

BTW Basic Talk is Vonage only much cheaper.

What makes the more expensive Oooma any better?

[Ron3rd]

dshinnick wrote:
We had Ooma before we went on the road and it was just fabulous. Excellent call quality and, at the time, completely free aftnksaer buying the box. I still sometimes use it in parks with good Wifi but poor cell signal. I fully intend to put it right back into service when we're off the road for good.

The bluetooth adapter seems to allow you to use your cell phone through the Ooma box. Can't imagine why you'd need that. And Bluetooth has a range of about 30 feet, and not through walls.

If you have good upload speed on your internet connection (100 mb or more) I think you'll love it. You can even hook it up so that every phone in your house, wherever it's plugged in, will work through Ooma's connection.

ThanKS for the info

[dshinnick]

We had Ooma before we went on the road and it was just fabulous. Excellent call quality and, at the time, completely free after buying the box. I still sometimes use it in parks with good Wifi but poor cell signal. I fully intend to put it right back into service when we're off the road for good.

The bluetooth adapter seems to allow you to use your cell phone through the Ooma box. Can't imagine why you'd need that. And Bluetooth has a range of about 30 feet, and not through walls.

If you have good upload speed on your internet connection (100 mb or more) I think you'll love it. You can even hook it up so that every phone in your house, wherever it's plugged in, will work through Ooma's connection.

[Ron3rd]

Thanks for the info. I think MrWizard mentioned that he had Ooma and got his Ooma voip adapter from Costco. The one on Costco runs $129. I noticed they range from about $80 to $129 so I was wondering what features, like Bluetooth, etc, that folks thought were important.

[SteveAE]

I can't directly answer your question about Ooma since I don't have it. Phone Power VoIP service allows quite a number of VoIP adapters to be used, so I would suspect Ooma would too. But if you BYOD to Phone Power, not all features may be supported...for instance, not all adapters support a second cloned line (an included, free, service with Phone Power if you have the correct adapter). Hope this helps a little.

So not to question your decision to go with Ooma (certainty, the price is right), but I chose Phone Power for their excellent US based customer support. If I had this question with them, I would simply give them a call.

Whomever you do choose though, as long as your internet connection supports it (Phone Power has a little tester on their website that will evaluate the quality of VoIP calls from your location...run it three times for best results), I suspect that you will enjoy it. Sure wish I had made the switch sooner.

[2oldman]

There's a couple pages of Ooma in here.