Switching to ooma
I been a Vonage customer for a long time. Just to give you an idea, when we first ordered it, someone from Qwest tried to call my wife to get us to use their long distance plan at 7 cents per minute. My wife told them we had had unlimited long distance to the US and Canada for $25 per month. That started an argument where the salesperson called my wife a liar and said he/she had never heard of Vonage and no companies were offering unlimited long distance. My how things have changed! I must admit, initially it was rocky and I felt like a VOIP pioneer at the time. Now it seems crazy not to use VOIP if you are paying for high speed internet. I know many competitors have cropped up over the years. I’ve tried a couple and cancelled quickly because of various issues. Well, I finally found something I feel may be worthy enough to get me to drop Vonage. It’s ooma.
Basically with ooma you pay a little more up-front for the hardware, but then you get free phone service for life – or as long as they happen to stay in business. And that is the question isn’t it? How are they going to stay in business by only making money on hardware?
After doing some research it seem the hardware used to be $400. Now it is listed at $249 on their website, but can be found even cheaper on Amazon or NewEgg. Many predicted the company to fail, but they have not. Instead they have changed their model just a bit and offer ooma premier for $12.99 per month or $99.99 per year.
Again, critics will say, who is going to pay for premier when they have the choice of free? Well, I’m the type of person that will pay for premier. It’s a no brainer for me!
For a while I had two phone lines with Vonage. I was basically pulling full price for each line – even though I was using the same hardware and there was nothing extra they had to do other than give the second line and activate it. I was paying close to $70 per month for that second line. With ooma premier I get 2 lines for $12.99 per month (or $8.34/mo. if I pay yearly). See, no brainer!
Plus there are a number of additional features that are just worth paying for with premier. For example, a feature I often use with Vonage is simul-ring with allows me to forward my home phone to my cell phone, or my wife’s cell phone when we are expecting a call and need to go out. This is available only with ooma premier. Also, there is voicemail forwarding. I get all my voicemails in my email inbox. Again, this is a nice feature to have that is only available with premier. So, for me, the switch is obvious, and the cost for the hardware and premier package are definitely worthy of the price. I’m essentially getting twice as much for a quarter of the price!
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April 23, 2009
Posted in: Electronics, Products, Technology
19 Responses
I have used Vonage in the past, but then Verizon offered all of their bundle packages, but now I am ready to go back to VOIP, plus I want a new home phone number (too many telemarketers). Thanks for pointing this out I will definitly be trying them out.
No brainer really. Looks like you’re always ahead of almost everybody when it comes to VOIP. LOL. But seriously, this post of yours should get more coverage. It’s not like you’re being paid by ooma to advertise their product. You did this because they deserve the shout out. Thanks for sharing. And yeah, I might urge the boss to switch to ooma too. hehe
I’ve had mixed quality with a couple of VoIP offerings over my DSL. Maybe I just need to throw more bandwidth at the problem; my ISP did say they prioritize their VoIP box’s data, but it still tends to not be very noisy and third-world sounding. Makes me think, if this is what it’s like with the ISP’s VoIP, how well would a third-party offering work?
I had some trouble with vonage when I used it about a year ago. They may be better now though.
It’s not like you’re being paid by ooma to advertise their product. You did this because they deserve the shout out. Thanks for sharing. And yeah, I might urge the boss to switch to ooma too.
You’re right. Ooma doesn’t have an affiliate program. They don’t need one. The service is so good that people don’t need to be paid to share the love.
Any cell phone company is cheap compared to what we have to pay in South Africa!
I use skype for all my long distance calling, will give a try to Ooma.
One of the main reasons I am writing this is the cost advantage ooma claims to provide: it eliminates monthly bills in allowing you to make unlimited phone calls to any kind of phone for free, and forever. The only cost is that of the device bundle.
Because you advertise their product,I will try it. If they only need me pay money for the hardware. I use skype for all my long distance calling before.
I don’t want to pay the estorionate prices for the calling. So I will try it.
It is still painfully expensive to be making long distance calls over the landlines. The sooner the telecoms companies realise that they are losing business they may rethink their ways!
i disagree i thing it is so expensive here in Australia as we have one company testra how monopolizes the market. so expensive here plus we have the slowest internet in the world also because of the monopolization
It’s not strictly true to say Ooma is offering free voice – after … Ooma piggybacks on existing phone services. And then as you keep on feedin’ ‘em, they’re gonna want more and more.
connected the core hub without a hitch 3 days ago. tweaked a little bit on the QOS with the help of customer service. the scout is great to have and will probably try the premier service during the trial period. the hub alone meets my need. finally, my long search for a great telephone service at a great price has come to an end. thank you ooma for offering this product at an affordable price. my initial investment will be recouped in 7 months and looking forward to that day! i would like to give it a 5 star now but will wait after 7 months from date of installation.
I cannot believe they called your wife a liar!! sometimes cell phone providers can be difficult to deal with!
Good thing you have a good option there. Vonage customer service sucks big time.
I have had this system for about two months now and it has been flawless. Porting the number from Cox was relatively fast and easy and I was lucky to find a great deal from Amazon with a free 8GB Ipod shuffle…The system will pay for itself in three months compared to Cox phone service I had in my home. Having the scout was a must for em as I have a 6,000 sq. ft. house and the telephone/router/modem is in the basement storage room where all of the network, electrical and telephone equipments are. The hub sits in the basement and the scount is used to retrieve messages from the kitchen. I have Dect phones everywhere so cheap alternative if you do not want to use multiple lines. Anyway, the call quality is perfect, can’t tell the difference between Ooma and Cox, but the features like call waiting, internet access and forwarding of voicemail to my iphone e-mail is great. I never had these features with Cox. You will not be disappointed with the system and it will pay for itself in months in case they go out of business. I wish the international calling rates were lower but they are comparable to other phone companies.
I also was an early pioneer and started off with a company called Vontastic (still use it today for my main home phone). The amount of features on voip is far superior to any service you can get from your local carrier. The cost is not even close, and the quality of lines etc. is great. The most important thing is to make sure you have a good solid broadband connection and you are pretty much set.
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