Ooma as a landline replacement

A

akimyai

New member
Has anyone used Ooma to replace their landline?  It seems much cheaper than going through Cox or ATT.

I'm interested in getting a landline, but I didn't like the idea of having to maintain a backup battery as with Cox.

I was all ready to just get a traditional landline through ATT (as opposed to Uverse) but it sounds like even an old fashioned landline requires a backup battery these days (for the Optical Network Terminal).  And if I did Uverse, I'd need two backup batteries (one for the ONT, and one for the Residential Gateway).

So it seems like regardless, I'll have to get a backup battery.  Then I came across a blog post on Ooma, and it seems like a much cheaper alternative than Cox or ATT.  Does anyone have any experience with this, or maybe a better recommendation?  Thanks!
 
I have had Ooma (basic service) for about four years now.  I love it.  I have had no problems with them and it is great only paying a little over $3 a month which comprise of the required taxes and govt. fees.  I HIGHLY recommend them as a provider. 

Funny story is when I called AT&T to cancel my land line service, they asked me why and I told them I am going VOIP (voice over IP). 

The AT&T person recommended against it saying the following:
1) 911 may not be able to find me
2) VOIP is not a reliable as a land line since the phone company powers their own line
3) VOIP quality is less than desired. 

I gave them the following answers:
1) I let them know that I am comfortable with the E911 registry for VOIP (when you sign up with OOMA it is in your sign up).
2) Since most people use a phone that connects to the wall outlet (cordless phone base, etc), those phone will not work even if on a land line unless you have an old school corded basic phone.
3) I was cancelling my service using the VOIP service to make this phone call.  She said wow, I though you were on a land line, it sounds so clear and natural.

So since those scare tactics did not work, she offered for me to keep my land line for about $10 a month with all taxes and fees included.  I asked why can she offer this price to me now since I had been paying $40-$50 a month for years but I would get a 75%+discount when I am leaving.  She did not have a good answer and I was cancelled shortly thereafter.

I have configured my existing house wiring so that the Ooma is powering all the regular phone jacks so I can have cordless and corded phones all over my house like a regular land line would work.  It is pretty simple if you are comfortable in uncoupling the phone company's line from your termination block at your access panel outside your home.  If not, you can just plug your cordless phone base into the Ooma and do it that way.
 
Sorry to bring up an old post but I got an Ooma several months ago and it's working fine.  However, I have the phone connected directly to Ooma.  Therefore, only this one phone works.  I know a few posts up, IHO mentioned another thread which kind of touched on how to enable the wiring to get Ooma to talk to all the phones in the home like before and I corresponded with Davenlai but I wasn't that interested then since I had Cox voice.

I hope Davenlei or someone else can help me with my issue.

Previous setup:

Cox Internet with voice. 

In my home office, there was the Cox modem/phone combo.  The Cox modem/phone device plugged into a RJ45 jackbox in the office.  No phone was in the office.

In my master bedroom, another RJ45 jackbox connected to another phone which worked.

In the kitchen, another phone was plugged in and worked.

New setup:

Cox Internet but canceled the voice service.  I returned the Cox modem/phone combo device and purchase my own cable modem.  Internet works well.

Purchase Ooma Telo and connected that to the LAN and voice call send/receive is working fine.

I wanted the phone in the kitchen and master bedroom to work as before so I went outside to the phone demarc and disconnected the two short RJ45 cable on right side of demarc.  Please see attachment.

When I plug in the Ooma directly into the RJ45 jackbox in my office, I do not get dial tone on the phone in the master bedroom or the kitchen.

Just as a check, I took a very long telephone cable and plugged the Ooma directly into the RJ45 at the kitchen and tried the phone in master bedroom.  No dial tone.

Therefore, it looks like when I unplugged the two short RJ45 cables on the outside demarc, it seems like the connections between the three RJ45s (office, kitchen and master bedroom) got severed as well.  It's no big deal since I can just plug those two outside short RJ45s back in but then at least one of them would connect me back to the Telco connection.  Before I disconnected the two short outside RJ45 cables, I had an extra phone cable so I cut it and stripped off the four wires to test them for voltage with my digital voltmeter at the kitchen port but I measured no voltage (No 9V DC). And yes I was testing for DC voltage, not AC.  I think the green and red are the ones but I tried every pair combo but measured no voltage between any of them.

I remember when Cox originally installed the digital voice the tech had trouble getting it to work and did something outside.  When you have Cox digital voice do they disconnect the phone company connection as well?

I appreciate any suggestions.  Ooma tech support is useless.  Originally when I set up the Ooma, I got a number that would dial out but not in.  After ringing the number a while, some business' voice mail would play.  They could not make it work so after about five calls I told them that the number had issues and to give me a new number.  And that worked.  ::) I did not want to keep my original number because a realtor incorrectly put my number on her Web sites and after years of asking to have this corrected, she never once responded to my e-mails or calls.  I kept getting calls about her listing.  So, I wasn't sad to lose that number.

Sorry for the long post.

 

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From what I understand from your post, you didn't need to disconnect anything on the outside box if it was working with Cox telephone (which is basically VOIP).

All you had to do was plug the Ooma in the same way as your cable/voice modem and you should have got dialtone all the way around (that is, if Ooma does indeed provide dialtone similar to Cox).

If you plug in both RJ45s, I don't think it will connect you to the Telco... it will just connect those 2 outlets to your home's phone circuit.

When you sign up with Cox, they have to disconnect the Telco line from your home circuit so that it doesn't interfere with the Cox dial tone.

One other solution if that doesn't work, buy a new wireless phone system where you only need to connect the base to a line and all the other phones just need to be hooked up to power.
 
#1: Ooma is the best.  I've had it for years and it handles all the telemarketer calls i get on my landline with ease for $4/mo.

#2: I take the simple approach that Iho suggested, plug in the base, have handset units throughout the house.

Do it and you wont regret it.
 
Thank you very much for your response.

I found out that there was bad troubleshooting on my part but as you mentioned I plugged those two outside RJ45 connectors back in and plugged in the phone that was in my office in the kitchen area and it worked!  Then, I tried the one upstairs but it still didn't work.

Wondering if something was wrong with the upstairs phone (they are both cordless but different units) I took the downstairs phone and plugged it in using the existing phone cable that is upstairs (one end of the upstairs phone cable is behind a dresser that weighs at least 200 pounds so I'll never get to it).  It worked as well so the upstairs phone might have gone faulty or just needs to be recharged since I had it unplugged for a while.  Since I used the original telephone cable that was upstairs I know the cable upstairs is good. I'll test the upstairs phone again later after several hours to see if the handset just ran out of charge.  But I'm glad both the kitchen and master bedroom phone connections work again.

One additional thing I did try is to disconnect both outside RJ45 connectors and both locations still work so it seems those connectors have no effect on the inside wiring.  I am going to keep it disconnected for additional safety.

Thank you very much for your help.

P.S. Where should I send your tech support check?  :p

irvinehomeowner said:
From what I understand from your post, you didn't need to disconnect anything on the outside box if it was working with Cox telephone (which is basically VOIP).

All you had to do was plug the Ooma in the same way as your cable/voice modem and you should have got dialtone all the way around (that is, if Ooma does indeed provide dialtone similar to Cox).

If you plug in both RJ45s, I don't think it will connect you to the Telco... it will just connect those 2 outlets to your home's phone circuit.

When you sign up with Cox, they have to disconnect the Telco line from your home circuit so that it doesn't interfere with the Cox dial tone.

One other solution if that doesn't work, buy a new wireless phone system where you only need to connect the base to a line and all the other phones just need to be hooked up to power.
Click to expand...
 
Just setup my ooma VOIP.  It was around $120 OTD at Costco, normally $20 more but it had an instant rebate.  It's the Ooma Air Telo, which comes with a bluetooth wireless adapter so you can setup your Ooma anywhere in the house.  It can also port calls from your mobile when you're at home.  Otherwise I don't see how this is a useful advantage over the base Ooma which retails for $109.  But since Costco had the $20 rebate, might as well. 

Setup was pretty simple:

activate Ooma online
plug bluetooth adapter in back of Ooma
plug phone to Ooma
connect thru ethernet cable to laptop for onetime setup
power on

Made some calls, wife can't tell I was on VOIP.  So far so good, though it did lose wifi connection for a minute after my last call.  Might just connect via ethernet to my nighthawk router instead of the wireless adapter. 
 
For those that have everything in the master closet, how do you hook up the Ooma to your router, next to your modem AND have a telephone master base all in the small closet space? 
 
shadyoc said:
For those that have everything in the master closet, how do you hook up the Ooma to your router, next to your modem AND have a telephone master base all in the small closet space? 
Click to expand...

Just use the Ooma wireless adapter and hook you base to it, then it can go wherever your base phone is.  No need to hard wire it to your base phone. 

I've been doing it this way for a couple years with only a 2 or 3 times it's lost signal.  When it does the ooma base flashes red and I just cycle power and it's fine.
 
Aqua, my friend showed me his ooma telo air the other day. The one he bought from costco, I believe, was the basic one $109 one. What's the difference between that and the more expensive $149 one?
 
If he got the ooma air telo from Costco, it has the wireless adapter.  It's on sale, hence its at $109, which is the same price as the base ooma telo which is also at $109.
 
I have not oomad. I'm getting tempted to cut the phone line from cox though. Pay like 28/month for a phone we literally have not used in almost two years. If we get rid of it, I don't think I would even bother getting ooma.
 
I have a cellular based alarm so don't need Internet or a phone line. Ooma works over the internet so don't think it would work with alarms that require a land line is my guess
 
I think home alarms might work with Ooma... don't they just require a dial tone?

I would go with zovall's cheaper version but the hoops he went through to port his home line is too much trouble for me.

We need to keep our home number (various accounts are tagged with it) as we've had it for many years.

I'll go to Ooma once our 2-year price protection expires with Cox if Cox won't give me a good deal to stay with their phone service.

 
zovall said:
As a cheaper alternative to Ooma, check out the Obi (starts at $38). I did a write up over 2.5 years ago and it has been working great:http://www.talkirvine.com/index.php/topic,2614.msg40834.html#msg40834

They even made the setup easier as Google Voice is officially supported since Sept 2014:http://www.obitalk.com/obinet/
Click to expand...

This.  Obi also do not have the monthly taxes and fees.  You can only port cellular numbers to Google Voice, but that can be circumvented easily by buying a prepaid SIM, porting your landline number over to make it a cellular number then porting it again to Google Voice.  A little bit of a hassle, but saves you $30~40 a year in Ooma fees.
 
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