Revisiting Rollover Minutes

When I first signed up for AT&T, I wrote that rollover minutes were pretty much a joke. I kept racking up rollover minutes and never used them until last month. I use my cell phone for work and last month I had to be in a ton of conference calls and managed to use up basically all of my rollover minutes! With my anytime minutes, rollover minutes, and then putting the final calls of the month on Ooma, I was on the phone for something like 2200 minutes. That is basically a complete work week on the phone!

The rollover minutes saved me from upgrading my plan for 1 month; as the conference calls are probably going to continue, my 450 minute plan just isn't going to cut it any more. So while I initially thought it was a gimmick, it ended up having some value to me. Now that I'm on a 900 minute plan with A-List (which I found out is being discontinued and if I switch to a family plan, I may lose it), I'm going to start accumulating rollover minutes again! For those that don't know, A-List is 5 (or 10 for family plans) numbers that you call frequently and don't use your minutes. I put the conference call numbers on my A-List, so my usage will drop to virtually nothing again.

Is newer technology better?

With my cordless phones failing, I was on the hunt for a new set of phones. After a bit of hemming and hawing, I got the Panasonic KX-TG7624 4 handset set. The main feature I wanted was the ability to set a different ringtone per caller. The old Uniden set we have (about 8 years old) did this and worked well. We have a bunch of ringers to choose from and we can set them on a per phonebook entry basis. This new Panasonic said Ringer ID was a feature.

After 45 minutes of playing with the set and reading the manual, I figured out that the Ringer ID was not as full featured as what I already had. The ringer tones are limited to 3 groups, each with 1 ringer per group. The groups were named Home, Cell 1 and Cell 2. This was less than helpful. The phone has the ability to link cell phones to it which is something that I not only didn't need, it made the phone far too confusing to figure out.

Once I realized that it didn't really have the 1 feature I wanted, I immediately boxed up the phones and will return them to Costco tomorrow. I felt like a moron trying to set up the phones; I have a degree in engineering and setting up these phones became an exercise in frustration.

Do all these extra features really help? Do people really want more features that they can't figure out how to use?

Doing the right business thing

A few weeks ago, my wife started complaining that our cordless phones started dying. So, I decided to get a new battery and see if that fixed the issue or I'd have to get a new set of phones due to bad charging circuits. I bought a battery from Fry's and it failed to charge, so I suspected that the charging circuit was bad. Since I didn't need the battery, I went back to Fry's to return the battery.

When I presented the battery to the returns clerk, he looked at it and was a bit suspicious as he said that Lenmar batteries usually have a label on them with the Lenmar name. At that point, things began to click. When I brought the battery home, it looked identical to the battery I already had with the exception that the code on it was a little different. The package said 850 mA whereas the battery (and the ones in the phones) said 800 mA. The clerk went back and retrieved another battery and it was yellow (the ones I had including the replacement I bought were white) with a Lenmar label on it.

Now it was Fry's word against mine; I said that I bought the battery I was returning. I couldn't prove I hadn't swapped the batteries and they couldn't prove that the battery I took home was the real Lenmar one. The clerk asked his manager and the manager said to go ahead and accept the return. That was a big relief; I almost had to eat $10 for the battery. So it looks like someone swapped the battery in the store (the packages for the batteries only has a stable at the top and you can easily slip the battery out). Normally this kind of theft just impacts the store (and the consumer indirectly with higher prices), but in this case, I almost got stuck with the bill.

Normally Fry's is an easy target for me to pick on as their staff isn't the most helpful, some of their sales tactics are questionable (I've seen returned items shrink wrapped and resold as new), and I only shop there as a last resort. However, in this case, I was quite pleased with their customer service. Maybe this is way manufacturers put products in the bubble packaging to prevent people from stealing like this.

Review: Ooma - Take 2

Almost two years ago, I wrote about my experience with Ooma and how disappointed I was with it. I decided to give it another chance and did so in June. After 2 months of testing, my wife and I were satisfied with the voice quality and features, so I ported our number over to Ooma and dropped the $62 a month landline.

The price for Ooma can't be beat even if you pay the $120 a year for Ooma premier which I chose to do. The premier service got me a free number port, enhanced caller ID (without this you just get the number and it matches it with your phone book to show the name), a second phone number/line, voicemail sent to email and text, Google Voice extensions and ability to forward all calls to a cell phone if my Internet connection goes down.

The basic question is if the voice quality is good and is it reliable. So far voice quality has been much better than it was last time I tried. This could be due to newer hardware, a different router, or any other number of factors. We've had a few blips, but overall the quality is more than acceptable. Reliability is a little different story. Last week they had a major outage that lasted a few hours that was blamed on a power outage. It made me question my decision, but considering we have cell phones for backup, it wasn't a hug concern.

Pretty much everything else is gravy to me. We had a basic answering machine, so voicemail that sends to email is a great feature, but takes the excitement out of coming home and seeing the light flashing on the answering machine!

I picked up a Telo handset a little over a week ago with the intention of using it as a work line. The phone would allow me to be on a call without tying up the home number. After a few missteps setting of Google Voice extensions, I managed to set it up such that the handset is my work line for both incoming and outgoing calls. When I call out, it shows my Google Voice number. The handset is mediocre in that it is slow in scrolling through the numbers and doesn't have a headset jack. However, it is good enough for my needs. I've used the speakerphone for a number of conference calls without any problems.

The only gotcha with any VOIP solution is what happens when the power woes out. I plugged my router, cable modem, Ooma box, and cordless phone base station into a UPS. That should be good enough for a few minutes. With cell phones easily reachable, this isn't a big concern.

Pros

• Inexpensive even with the premier service and $3.50 in monthly fees.
• Voicemail works well and sending messages to email is useful.
• Google Voice extensions makes it convenient to have a work phone.
• Decent voice quality.

Cons

• Recent outage is a little disconcerting.
• Steep initial cost, but cost recovery can happen in about 7 months.
• Telo Handset is a mediocre cordless phone.

Summary
For those looking to keep a home phone, but want to reduce cost, Ooma is currently a decent option. As long as Ooma stays in business and the voice quality remains good, I'll be happy. With the initial cost of $180 + tax (from Costco), the $120 Premier service for the year and $3.50 per month the first year cost is around $350. I will be able to recoup the entire first year cost in less than 6 months. After the first year with the premier service, I'll be paying about $14 a month which is $48 a month less than I was paying.