Giving Ooma another chance

The other day I had lunch with some friends and one mentioned that he was reducing his monthly bills by dropping cable, installing solar and switching his home phone to Ooma. He had Ooma for 6 months and was quite pleased with it. I had tried Ooma about 1.5 years ago and written about it; unfortunately my experience back then wasn't as positive. I decided to give it another try as the potential to save money is huge. In the last few years, my phone bill has gradually risen while the features have gone down (I had lots of features with Qwest over a decade ago including a blacklist, then with MCI I had voicemail that forwarded to email. Now I don't even have voicemail as there is an extra charge for it.)

This time I just plugged the Ooma into the back of my Time Capsule (it had an open port) and forwarded my home phone to the Ooma number for testing. So far through a few calls, there have been no complaints. I'll give it a few weeks and I'm crossing my fingers. Even if I stick with Ooma Premier ($120/yr + $3.50/month for taxes), the cost recovery (including number porting and getting a Telo handset) is about 7 months and then I'll save about $50/month. My regular phone bill will just keep going up, so this may be the only way to keep a home phone without paying through the nose.

I'm crossing my fingers that this pans out!

Google Voice fix for when it stops working

Today I got notification that I missed a call coming through my Google Voice account. I checked Google Voice and everything was setup correctly; I had also noticed that the Google Voice app on my iPhone didn't notify me of an SMS that I received the other day which was strange.

Thinking that things may have broken after I ported my cell number to AT&T last month, I deleted my cell number from Google Voice and added it back. While I shouldn't have been surprised, I was when that simply fix made the forwarding work again and notifications started working again in the Google Voice app.

So, if you have trouble with Google Voice, delete the forwarding number(s) and re-add them.

Positive Sprint Customer Service Experience

I've written in the past about the horrible experiences I've had with Sprint customer service, so I think it is only appropriate to write about a positive experience. Last month I decided to contact Sprint to find out what would happen to my account if I ported out the primary number and left the other lines alone. I've been forwarding my Sprint line to my AT&T iPhone for a year and decided to finally "reclaim" my number. I was holding out due to an ETF, but decided that the ETF got low enough that it was no longer a reason to keep forwarding the number (also SMS didn't forward). The Sprint representative answered quickly and said that a new number would be assigned and nothing else would happen to the account.

I decided to try my luck and see if I could get the lines on the account rearranged to move included features to the lines that I was keeping. The rep said that since the plan was so old, the changes couldn't be made which I completely understood. However, when I checked the account, the changes I requested were actually made! I was surprised, but pleased (I did verify this with a Sprint reseller).

After all that, my parents actually ported out their phones to Verizon so my Dad could get an iPhone. When I got my latest bill, it looked as if Sprint billed me a bit more than I expected. It should have been the regular monthly fee + the ETF for my line (Sprint bills one month in advance, so it was the normal fee without additional lines). When I contact Sprint on Friday, I got email back Saturday with an apology and a credit applied to my account; not just the credit I was supposed to get, but credits for other stuff that I won't see about until the next bill shows up. That was great service to respond so quickly and fix the issue.

Thanks, Sprint!

Lost my iPhone

Just over a year ago, right after I quit my job, I bought an iPhone 3GS off Craigslist for development. I was going to be working on a project that did barcode scanning, so the iPhone simulator wouldn't cut it. I had a feeling that a new iPhone was coming out, but it was either work a month and earn money or save the $325 and make excuses to why I couldn't test the app; the choice was pretty easy. When the iPhone 4 came out, I bought one and kept my iPhone 3GS running iOS 3.1.3 for a testing device.

I made the mistake of letting my son (3 years old at the time) play with it and he quickly learned to use it to play music, see pictures, take pictures, and check the weather. He now calls it "his" iPhone and loves to listen to music on it (yes, I did set the volume limiter and selected appropriate music for him). The phone is amazingly durable and my son now listens to it with headphones when we're in the car which is a huge improvement from us having to listen to his music on the stereo!

At least I didn't actually lose my iPhone, but I doubt I'll be able to get it back from my son anytime soon!