Thanks to my husband (our family’s Chief Technical Office) for writing up this review of the Ooma, the VOIP device we used to cut the landline cord and save hundreds of dollars every year.
We have had the Ooma for two five years now and are thoroughly pleased with it. The difference in telephone service is virtually undetectable from a classic land line, but Ooma costs a fraction of the price.
For those unfamiliar with Ooma, it’s a small box – about the size of a modem/router – that plugs in through your high-speed internet connection to give you free calling throughout the United States and low rates for international calls. The setup at our house is the Ooma in our home office, with three cordless phones placed all over the house.
We pay a small monthly fee (ours is $4, but you can check here to see how much you will pay in your area), and we get caller-ID, call-waiting, call-waiting caller-ID, 911 and voice mail.
Installation is rather simple and it is possible to import your old phone number for a fee (or for free with a one-year subscription to Ooma Premier).
After subscribing, you can access all your phone information from your personal My Ooma account, where you can view call logs, listen to voice mail and check you calling statistics.
Ooma offers a virtually unlimited assortment of options for home phone solutions, including the Ooma Linx, which provided an extra phone jack in any room for adding an extra phone of fax machine, and the Ooma Mobile app, which allows Ooma subscribers to make international calls at a fraction of your cell provider’s rates.
New subscribers will also get a free 60-day trial of Ooma Premier, which adds an assortment of extra features, including free calls to Canada, an instant second line, a forwarding number if your internet is down, three-way conferencing and more.
My unsolicited review would be an overwhelming recommendation to stop paying monthly fees to the phone company and switch to Ooma now!
Our local phone bill would have been $34.99 per month. With the Oooma, we started saving money after just four months — and you’ll save earlier, since you are paying less for the machine than we did.
Even more important, the call quality is superb; I have never lost a call and experience zero change in quality in a call.
By the way — if you make a lot of calls to Israel, we call land lines in Israel for just 2.8 cents per minute – or with a plan, we can get 1000 minutes for $9.99 a month. (Calls to Israeli cell phones were 21.5 cents per minute the last time I checked). Of course, you may just want to use What’s App for free.
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