Recently I’ve seen a number of reviews for Ooma phone service and how you pay a one time fee and get free phone calling (in the US) forever (or until the company goes out of business). I’ve been looking at our $53 per month AT&T landline bill and keep wondering what we’re getting for it. I’ve said for a long time that I wasn’t going to go VOIP because of poor call quality and potentially unreliable 911 service. Well, with more and more people going VOIP, the 911 issue has pretty much gone away. Public safety answering points know how to deal with VOIP. The only question with 911 is if broadband goes out and/or power goes out. A UPS handles the power issue. As for voice quality, the reviews for Ooma have been largely good.
I went ahead and ordering the Ooma Telo from Costco,.com but quickly cancelled my order. I’ve done a bit of reading and if you get the older model, the Oooma core, you won’t be charged the $12 recovery fee each year after the first year. Also, it’s unclear to me what features got pulled out of the core and put into their premier ($99/year going to $120/year at the end of the year) service. Their premier features look intriguing and $120/year is a whole lot less than the $600+/year that I pay now, so who knows if I’ll go for that. Our phone needs are pretty basic, so the pay once and never pay again service may work for us.
I went back to Costco.com and ordered the older Ooma and we’ll see what happens. Since I’m getting it from Costco, if I don’t like it, it goes back. It doesn’t appear to be part of the 90 day return policy, so I can take advantage of Costco’s generous return policy.
Am I going to be able to recover my money in less than 6 months and give up a landline? I’m not sure, but it is definitely worth a try. Since I have call forwarding on my phone, I can just forward the calls to the Ooma number and give it a test drive. If it works, I’ll port my home number to Ooma. If it doesn’t, I turn off call forwarding and return the Ooma. (Based on my history with landline phone companies, AT&T will jack up the price in the near future leaving me with few options; I switched from MCI when the rate kept going up and up and up.
Anyone used Ooma? Does it work as well as it is advertised?
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