Ooma

Sometime back I got sick of paying outrageous prices for my home land line, and for the poor customer service. So I switched my home phone to Verizon home phone, which allows telephone sets to connect directly to a cellular appliance.

Verizon's solution included lots of extras, and it cut my phone bill in half. That's the good part. The not so good is that it's been less than dependable, due to a less than stellar cellular signal in my home.

I've heard a lot of ado over Ooma, and I had recommended them to a coworker who lives down the street from me. She hooked up with them about a year ago and has been very pleased. Since my contract with Verizon is nearing its end, I went ahead and ordered an Ooma Telo. It was on sale for $139 delivered.

The Telo connects directly to the Internet, and you connect your home phone to the Telo. It then works just like a regular phone, but with a lot of extra features. The price includes free service for life (user only pays monthly taxes), with full feature extras costing $10 monthly. The free service includes the initial phone number, unlimited long distance and caller ID. Your regular home phone number can be ported for a fee, if you wish.

Premium service adds about every phone feature imaginable, plus an additional free phone number. If you buy into their wireless telephone sets (about $60 ea), you get even more features.

I received my Telo last night and got it connected today, along with my initial phone number (which I selected from a list). I went through the setup, and all went well. I already populated my contact list. So far, I'm impressed. The quality is great.

During the setup, I had the option to automatically forward calls to my cell, in the event my Internet goes down. This way calls are not missed. Either way, the voice mail takes over. Other features include sending MP3 copies of messages to my cell phone, and Community Black Listing.

The existing home wiring can be used, and is how I have it setup. I've heard there's a limit of 3 land lines that can be connected through home wiring, but I can't confirm that. I have a wireless setup, with 6 wireless handsets. I have no complaints on the quality. If anything, it's better than the current setup with Verizon. HD quality is achievable if both parties are on Ooma, with an HD handset. My understanding is that HD totally blows land lines out of the water.

The Telo appliance connects directly to the Internet. No computer is needed, other than to access the online software.

With the "free" service, the user still pays monthly 911 fees/taxes, which varies by location. Mine is around $3.89 monthly.

The premium service is $9.99 monthly, plus fees/taxes. The premium service is loaded with features. I'm currently on the 60-day free trial.

The Telo has a 1-yr warranty. I think an extended warranty is available, but I don't buy into those.

For the user, the Telo provides a service equivalent to a home phone on steroids. I can even connect a fax machine to it (but I won't). Consider also the unlimited usage, so I don't have to use up my allotment of minutes on my family plan.

Cell phone in my house usually works okay, but it's not the best and we often drop calls. My wife needs something better for her work, and this Ooma does the job nicely.

Extended warranties are always too expensive. It's almost always cheaper to self insure.

Self insured means that when the warranty expires and it breaks, I repair/replace at my expense. This ensures I'm assured of no over-insured rip-off.

I bought the Telo directly from Ooma on a referral from my co-worker. It was $139.99 delivered. So far, that's all I've spent.

Yes, she's been a customer for about a year. She is the one I referred to in my first poast.

The Ooma Telo unit is for both hard wired and wireless. I believe the wireless unit connects a standard wired phone to the Telo via wireless. However, I could be wrong as I didn't investigate it.

So I took a look at the wireless adapter and see I was way off base. It looks like its purpose is to allow the Telo to connect to a home wireless network or WiFi hotspot.