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Uma Thurman

Submitted by caseybea on Fri, 2010-01-08 15:51.VOIP

OK, not related to work, but worthy of a blog entry at least.

The other day I dove into VOIP for the first time. I admit, I'm a bit of a holdout with regards to my home phone service. I'm also old enough to recall the days when the phone in our house plugged into the wall with that huge 4-prong plug, and Ma Bell engineer(s) needed to do ANYTHING with regards to phone jacks or phones. If you so much as clipped a wire, out came the Bell-Police :-) Getting to the point of cutting my AT&T service is emotionally difficult. I've ALWAYS had AT&T.

Anyway, I finally decided to switch to VoIP and cut my land line. I'm not there yet, as I'm currently testing out the device first. I opted for an "ooma", which is essentially a product that's "VoIP in a box". You pay for the unit (about $200 US), and that's it. Everything else is free for as long as you own the unit. No monthly charges, no fees, no regulatory charges, nothing. Free local calls, free long distance. And they support porting your land-line number to the device when you're ready ($40 fee).

I put this off for such a long time because well, I just didn't trust VoIP. My brother got skype a few years back; his original calls to be were REALLY bad- long pauses, etc. That left a bad impression.

Thus far with what I have in place however, I've been impressed. The setup of the box was easy, and simple tests I've done thus far have gone well. It's pretty neat. I've now handed off the device (and a cordless phone I got, just for the Voip line) to my teenaged daughter. If anyone can test how well a phone works, a teen girl is the best option. She's available for hire if anyone else out there needs phone service tested :-)

The company's business model is interesting - pay a larger chunk up front for the device, but then it's free after that. There are two caveats: Ooma offers "Premium" options (enhanced voicemail, a bunch of other goodoes), that cost $9.95 a month. Not too bad. I don't need it, but many people opt in. Also, users of the newer units (Ooma "Telo") need to pay an annual 'regulatory fee' of $11.95 a YEAR to cover E911 stuff, etc. [no matter how you slice it, even with a newer Telo unit *and* Premium service, you're still wayyyyy ahead of the costs associated with Ma Bell].

I'm an old stodgy cheap guy, so I made sure to get one of the generation-1 units ("Ooma core"), whose term-of-service does NOT include any fees of any kind at all, ever.

Will this business model survive? I think so; I think there's "just" enough premium users to keep money coming in the door, and the newer units are becoming pretty popular as demand increases and word spreads.

Vonage? Works well too, I'm told, but I think they're up to $25 a month. MagicJack? I don't know anyone that has one, but that thing needs your *pc* on all the time. Ooma is a totally independent device, which was attractive to me.

Anyway, I'm late in the game, but trying out a VoIP solution that has an interesting twist with the no-more-money-ever cost to it. I'll keep you updated how it goes.

[Information about ooma is available at http://ooma.com, or find "kcb" at #lopsa]

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Portability
Submitted by caseybea on Wed, 2010-01-13 12:18.

Yes, the number portability thing is hit or miss. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones, in my city, ooma number(s) are available for my calling area. But others are not so lucky, and that's an issue.

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Number Portability?
Submitted by TheDreamer on Sun, 2010-01-10 09:28.

One thing I've always wondered is number portability with VoIP....when I moved to Manhattan, KS...I didn't have a local number that I could port to VoIP...so I found a provider that had local numbers available.

At the time, the more well known companies didn't have Manhattan, KS numbers (and the state doesn't let me make long distance calls from work).

The other thing that I look for in a VoIP company, is that Canada is included in its 'local' calling area...since that's what I mainly call out from home to....

Back when I was in Dublin, OH...I had gone with Vonage and Lingo. Vonage was first...once I convinced myself that not having (real) 911 was okay, I went landline free. Canada being 'local' was the big draw.... I got Lingo later, because it had the UK as part of its 'local'....my cousin has since moved back to the US. Lingo was also my fax line (though until they offered the option to change codecs, Vonage tended to work more reliably for sending...). But, neither having Manhattan, KS numbers (at the time) they went away and I found a BYOD company to sign up with (wanted to play with the D-Link WiFi VoIP phone, later went to an old ATA that I had around)

I had thought about using GoogleVoice to enhance the voicemail of the VoIP I'm using...but got stuck when it wants to know what supported mobile carrier serves my number. :'(

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Thumbs up
Submitted by wnl on Sat, 2010-01-09 08:25.

I've been using ooma for about a year. My first box was set up as a line for my home office. I used that to experiment a bit with the service and see if the quality was sufficient to replace my traditional land line. After a few months I still liked it so bought a second ooma for our home phone. Recently I have purchased a third unit, configured it and shipped it off to our daughter who is attending college in another state. I really like the device. I have had a few intermittent call quality problems but they are the exception, and placing the call a second time usually gets a clear connection. It's a great unit at a good price. Even the new units with the low annual fee will pay for themselves in under a year.

My original LJ entry on the subject: http://wnl256.livejournal.com/7220.html

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