VoIP providers opinions (Ooma Telo?)

[EMGX]

Completely off ebike topic and I did do some internet research but what are your experiences?
I live in a rural mountainous area with spotty cell coverage so I've kept a land line which has become ridiculously expensive (latest bill $120/mo) for something that is infrequently used but kept for times cell reception is poor (which it frequently is for all carriers in my area). Even internet is expensive $100/mo from a small local fiber optic provider but at least they provide outstanding service/support. The local provider offers VoIP at $35/mo plus taxes/fees and I was going to go with that but see that Ooma Telo is free for basic service plus usual taxes/fees which appears to be ~$7/mo in my area. Other providers like Vonage for home doesn't appear to get great reviews. What are your experiences/opinions, TIA.

 

[Roamers]

Who is your cell carrier? With Verizon, at home and in no/poor cell coverage my calls going over wifi. Also use it on cruise ships.

 

[EMGX]

Consumer cellular which uses AT&T network but I've checked other carriers and coverage is similar at my location. I guess I'm not smart enough to have checked into turning on my cell phone wifi calling. Do incoming/outgoing calls automatically go to wifi if cell coverage drops? I just ordered a Ooma Air wireless from Costco so it will be easy to return if initial results are poor. We use our landline only a couple times a month which is what makes our current land line bill so painful (just this month bill went up by $15/mo).

 

[stompandgo]

I know nothing about Ooma Telo. We cut the landline years ago and use cellphones exclusively. I get internet service from the cellphone provider, in my case, T-Mobile, for $30/month. I use their gateway and have my own wifi 6 mesh for the house. I have wifi calling on all the time as there is poor cell service in the basement. Calls will switch seamlessly from wifi to cell and the other way around. Voicemail is part of the cell service. I've been with T-Mobile since the early Sprint days and I can count on one hand the number of major unplanned outages that I've had.

 

[DaveMatthews]

Have you looked at Google Voice? I'm in the VOIP industry, but we do business servers/devices etc.
I don't have personal experience with Google voice, but if I'm not mistaken, you can get a free account and port your existing number to them.
At that point you can use a mobile app, or desktop app to make/take calls. There is likely a way to connect an analog adaptor to the service as well and re-use your current phone/s.
There may be other similar services out there as well.
The most important thing is how good/stable your internet connection is. Speed is NOT everything.
A VOIP call consumes less than 100K, so you can have 10 simultaneous calls with only 1MB of bandwidth.
The most important thing is packet loss, because VOIP packets are NEVER resent (unlike email/web etc.) if packets are lost. So, if you have significant packet loss on your network, or your internet connection, your experience will SUCK (crackly voice/missed words etc.). anything constantly over 5-10% is bad...
The next issue would be delay (how long does it take for packets to send or receive).
Most connections are pretty darn good now though. This was much more of a problem in the past ie before fiber.
Just a thought...

 

[Roamers]

Do incoming/outgoing calls automatically go to wifi if cell coverage drops?

At home, with decent cell coverage, it still defaults to wifi unless wifi in phone is disabled. In the boonies, once signed onto wifi, it just works.

 

[EMGX]

Thanks so much for the helpful replies. You would think that I should have checked into all of this long ago but I hadn't. Set up wifi calling on cell phones and will take a flier on Ooma. If a trial with Ooma works well I'll port my landline phone, otherwise back to Costco. Also ordered a Cyberpower UPS which I should have already had, but didn't.

 

[DaveMatthews]

Thanks so much for the helpful replies. You would think that I should have checked into all of this long ago but I hadn't. Set up wifi calling on cell phones and will take a flier on Ooma. If a trial with Ooma works well I'll port my landline phone, otherwise back to Costco. Also ordered a Cyberpower UPS which I should have already had, but didn't.

Hope that works for you mate!

 

[BlackHand]

I've had Ooma since 2008ish? Grandfathered in from when they didn't even charge taxes, so I've never upgraded the equipment. It just works - not sure if I could even log into my account if I needed to, I probably haven't in 5-10 years. The line is only used for my parents, and the pharmacy who calls to say prescriptions are ready even when the prescriptions aren't ready.

Obviously I can't speak to Ooma's current gen equipment, but we've had basically no issues with reliability and only the extremely occasional garbled voice which could be from my parent's side. Not bad for whatever the boxes cost originally - maybe $100?

 

[EMGX]

Costco has a $100 Telo Air2 wireless bundled with a cordless handset that I'll use testing. When I cancel the telecom landline I'll plug it into a phone jack - apparently not to be done until landline is disconnected to avoid damage to the Ooma. Sort of redundant if the cell phone wifi works well but I want to keep my landline # for a couple reasons and for <$10/mo not much reason to not keep it. They also had a nice Cyberpower UPS for $150 to provide power backup and surge protection for corded power and ethernet. I could have saved thousands if I had done this even a few years ago but that's on me for being lazy.

 

[DaveMatthews]

Costco has a $100 Telo Air2 wireless bundled with a cordless handset that I'll use testing. When I cancel the telecom landline I'll plug it into a phone jack - apparently not to be done until landline is disconnected to avoid damage to the Ooma. Sort of redundant if the cell phone wifi works well but I want to keep my landline # for a couple reasons and for <$10/mo not much reason to not keep it. They also had a nice Cyberpower UPS for $150 to provide power backup and surge protection for corded power and ethernet. I could have saved thousands if I had done this even a few years ago but that's on me for being lazy.

Sometimes when the landline is "disconnected" all they do is turn off the "dial tone" but leave the circuit "hot" with the 48vdc still intact.
You can tell if the circuit is in this condition by plugging your traditional phone in and if you hear no dial tone, but still hear "side tone" (blow into the transmitter and you can hear that in the receiver).
Don't plug in the output of the Ooma device in this condition. Disconnect the feed to the house first.
You should disconnect that anyway if you're going to feed all the jacks in the house, or you'll be feeding the Ooma dial tone out to the street and beyond.

 

[stompandgo]

Cyberpower is the entry level line from APC. Good stuff. I have two 15 year old APC UPS 1200VA UPS systems that I replaced the batteries in twice. Still running strong. I bought three APC 600VA small UPS systems this year for critical things like internet, wifi, and the OLED tv.