OT: Suggestions on home phone/VOIP service providers

[huskypantz]

After about 12 years without a landline, I've decided to go back to old reliable again. I have verizon fios, and the cost to adding a phone is $30/mo. I know there are plenty less expensive alternatives out there, I'm looking for suggestions on the best option. We make very few international calls (less than 1 per month), so that's not a big factor. No issues with keeping a specific phone number, a new number will be fine. I need to be able to plug into router, not workstation. Don't care about bells & whistles, just want reliable call service/decent voice quality and unlimited minutes. Looks like vonage is $26/mo. Magic Jack Plus is $70/first year, $30/additional years. The more I search, the more options I'm seeing - NetZeroVoice, PowerPhone, ITP. Any suggestions/comments on VOIP options would be much appreciated.

 

[rwdinsalem]

I've been using PhonePower for three years and have been happy with their service. I signed up for the two year pay in advance plan and it averaged out to about $10 per month. All you have to do is pay taxes and fees during the second year. It also includes an hour per month for overseas calls. The system does plug into your router. Only downside is they do not communicate well during outages (which have been few and far between). I signed with them because I had heard a lot of negative things about Vonage and PhonePower was half the cost of service from Comcast, my internet provider.

 

[dogpause]

Haaven't used it, but I believe Google Voice is free.

 

[huskypantz]

In case anyone's interested, I went with ooma. The base was $160 up front cost, on sale at Target. You pay 911 and state fees, which for me was about $3 a month. Setup was very easy, took 15 minutes. The call quality so far is very clear.

 

[Dogbreath2U]

In case anyone's interested, I went with ooma. The base was $160 up front cost, on sale at Target. You pay 911 and state fees, which for me was about $3 a month. Setup was very easy, took 15 minutes. The call quality so far is very clear.

I am interested. Is it a "one-time fee" only type of deal? I saw a deal for refurbished units on Woot for it and wondered how good the quality was. Any limitations or concerns at all?

 

[huskypantz]

Here is the "red tape" that I'm aware of:

• There is a one-time $40 fee if you want to keep your phone number (I took a new number)
• Verify that you have a good internet connection - http://pingtest.net/ - if you occasionally lose internet access(not talking about wireless signal), you run the same chance of having a call dropped.
• Max 5000 minutes per month (which is about 3 hrs of talking per day) - ooma wants to make sure you're not running a call center with their service
• Previous complaints were that there was a huge manual (not true for me, small quick start instructions, easy to set up). Another was that customer service was fair - I can't speak to that as I didn't use them, but as you first sign up they offer live chat support.
• The biggest risks (to me) are 1. the company folds 2. they add fees. they've been around since 2004 and in operations wince 2007. The ooma telo was introduced in 2009, which is what I'm using.
• If you know Clark Howard, he's a big fan of ooma.

 

[Kitaman]

I had phonepower and loved it. I had some call quality problems but that was 5 years ago and I'm sure that's improved if not fixed. I left it only because the voicemails went to my computer, essentially only accessible by me.

Is their a way to have missed phone calls go to a physical voice mail machine (i.e. main phone) and not to the PC? This would allow my wife to check messages without accessing my PC or any PC for that matter. If so then I would switch back to VOIP. I have Optimum cable phone (using 4 Uniden handsets) which works great but is more expensive compared to the suggestions above.

 

[huskypantz]

You have two voicemail options with ooma. The first is using ooma's voicemail. The ooma device has answering machine controls right on it - so you can use it as your answering machine. You can also call in from another line or you can access voicemail via the web. My ooma is in the same room as my router, so I chose the second option. I bought a uniden 2-handset model with answering machine($30). I set the number of rings so that this answering machine picks up before the ooma voicemail does. There were a few advantages for me to do this - one was that the phone base is more visible, so we can see if there are messages. The second (as you're probably already aware) is that Uniden's handsets display the number of vm messages and allow you to listen to messages remotely from each handset. So it's much more convenient for me to just use the phone's answering machine.

 

[Kitaman]

In case anyone's interested, I went with ooma. The base was $160 up front cost, on sale at Target. You pay 911 and state fees, which for me was about $3 a month. Setup was very easy, took 15 minutes. The call quality so far is very clear.

Is this a good deal?

 

[huskypantz]

Is this a good deal?

Well, you get a 6 month warranty from ooma, so if there's any issues with it you have that as backup. I think it is a good deal.

 

[IMind]

I've had Vonage for at least 5 years. I can't really complain.. I've had zero issues with them. It just seems a lot more expensive than the latest voip... The last time I looked at Ooma it cost money to call Canada... (my wife is Canadian and calls home A LOT) so it didn't make sense to me. I just looked and now it's included. I think I'll seriously look into it now.

Thanks for the thread.