Anyone here use VOIP?

[Kev Williams]

Very happy Ooma user checking in!
We've had Ooma for two and a half years now.

Add me to the happy Ooma user list. As for glitches, I tried to 'not' prioritize the Ooma by putting it behind my network router, but it's like listening to fireworks sometimes. But once I put the Ooma in front of the router, the ONLY problem I've had in 2 years is a glitch they had in the caller ID.

I'm paying extra (a whole $10 a month) to have full Caller ID and a second phone line and number- it's cool because all phones ring regardless of which number is called, and the second line is always available for someone else to use, and can be answered if a second caller calls... Also, every incoming and outgoing call is logged, you can blacklist any numbers, etc...

The only other charge besides the $120 a year is $4 a month in taxes and fees... My old phone setup for 2 lines was $129 a MONTH.

The only thing I miss is the fax machine...

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I used Vonage for a very long time, and I loved it, except that my internet provider at the time wasn't up to par. I'm talking barely even saw 2mb up or down. Even with that I was able to hear fine, but people would sometimes say I sounded like I was talking under water. Now that I have REAL high-speed internet I wouldn't have a problem with using them again, but I have a work cell phone with unlimited international roaming, and so I use it now for my international calls, which was the main reason I was using VOIP.

At work we have Cisco VOIP with no issues, except when the power goes out (as it does often) we have no phones.

[Rich Riddle]

I am realizing there are different types of VOIP. Some seem expensive while others cost only a few dollars a month.

[Bill Neely]

Lets say I kill my regular phone service and switch to VOIP. Do I / Can I still retain my old phone number if i want to?

With Basic Talk we were able to keep our old phone number.

[Brian Elfert]

Annoyed at the change, mislike the change in the billing and seriously put-off by 911 service being dependent on electrical power or a charged battery.

Copper phone service requires electricity too. Central offices don't necessarily have the means to stay running for days in a major power outage. It is likely that phone companies will no longer spend the money they should to keep copper POTS lines running well since they no longer have the customer density they once did.

[William Adams]

Yeah, but it doesn’t need electricity at my home, nor everyone else’s.

[Peter Kelly]

If you're on T-Mobile, your handset will automatically route calls to VIOP once you're connected to a wifi network. http://www.t-mobile.com/offer/wifi-c...extenders.html

No LTE or 3G signal required!

[Curt Harms]

Copper phone service requires electricity too. Central offices don't necessarily have the means to stay running for days in a major power outage. It is likely that phone companies will no longer spend the money they should to keep copper POTS lines running well since they no longer have the customer density they once did.

Verizon is certainly not diligent about maintaining their copper plant from many reports. There are some rather 'lively' threads at broadbandreports.com about Verizon and POTS. Verizon's position seems to be fiber or wireless or go away. The problem is that for the past few years they're also not expanding FiOS so people on copper without the option to go to fiber are kinda screwed. Time for local utility build-out and REAL competition?

[Kev Williams]

Ooma ported my phone number of 40 years over no problem...

As for electric, if we lose power or internet service, all calls end up going to the wife's Iphone. Calling out doesn't happen till the power or internet is back up, but-- we have cell phones!

FWIW I run my engraving business from our house, or I wouldn't bother with Ooma. Cell phones are great, but I have a Wilson booster just so they work in our house, and downstairs is iffy at best still...

[Brian Elfert]

FWIW I run my engraving business from our house, or I wouldn't bother with Ooma. Cell phones are great, but I have a Wilson booster just so they work in our house, and downstairs is iffy at best still...

If you have a iPhone 6 with updated IOS then you should likely be able to use WI-FI calling at home as long as you have WI-FI. This will probably work better than a booster as long as you have electricity and Internet.

I currently use WI-FI calling at home with Verizon because my phone barely works at home. I might switch carriers if the phone was not paid by work.

[Bradley Gray]

We use skype as a back up to our land line (no cell service here) but because we have satellite internet there is an annoying delay. I usually only use it to report the outage to Frontier. No way would I use it for biz calls.

[Matt Meiser]

I use the business version of Skype, formerly called Lync, and GotoMeetiing quite a bit for work. The sound quality of both is great, assuming good hardware (we all have headsets.) Since we went to Lync/Skype almost everyone has switched to that for inter-office calling and a number of our customers have as well for conferencing. We ditched land lines for home phone about 4 years ago. Its cheaper to give our daughter a hand-me-down iPhone than pay for a landline, and more reliable than what Frontier could provide as well. We since moved but never even considered going back to a land line. The old land line number was ported to my daughter's cell phone. My business land line number I started forwarding to my cell about the same time. Reviewing the calling logs, about the only calls I was getting were scams and political calls (pretty much the same thing!) Most legitimate calls were coming directly to my cell. I discontinued that number a year later, saving work over $60/mo.

Even in the last year of my dad's life when they called an ambulance a number of times, my parents were confident enough in the reliability of cell service to switch over to Charter VOIP service. Its not nearly as much of an issue as the old-timer phone company folks want you to believe in this day and age, assuming you have cell service or decent internet. The equipment on the provider's side is generally battery or generator backed and a cheap UPS can do the same for you for hours.

[mark mcfarlane]

~12 years of Vonage & ~5 years of OOMA. I currently have both (2 different homes in 2 different countries). Vonage has been extremely reliable, and gives me a US based phone number overseas. I don't use the OOMA phone much as I only visit that home a few weeks year, but it seems to work fine. The best thing: I got OOMA back when it was free. I am still grandfathered. I bought the hardware and until this hardware dies, I get free phone service. 0 fees or taxes. Nada. OOMA occasionally offers me a deal on new hardware, which includes the new required service fees/taxes.

[Tom Giles]

Vonage for 10+ years now. Costs are $9.99 + taxes = $12.35 a month. Comcast wants $30 a month for theirs. Got Vonage before Ooma was around. No problems with Vonage so far. Was going to cancel the land line but it's so cheap I keep it.