We are looking at porting our landline (not ready to completely ditch it) to VoIP and are looking at several options. Ooma seems like a good one. Don’t know if we want to bundle it with our cable/internet (more that need a modem upgrade). Who has home VoIP and what do you recommend?
We have had an Ooma for about 6 years. Works perfectly. Set it up once and haven’t done a thing to it since.
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Any reason you chose ooma?? What components do you need?
I have a MagicJack connected to our network. You can get 5 years of service for around $130 I believe.
I did some research at the time and settled on that based on price, ease of setup and call quality. After the one time purchase price, the only cost is a $5/month charge required by law 911 services and some communication tax.
We are just looking at ditching the landline completely. We wouldn’t have it now…but it’s part of a “bundle” with our internet. The landline costs $5 a month as part of the bundle. But if we ditch that and do only Internet, our price will increase a lot per month.
The only calls we get on the landline are telemarketers, and oddly sometimes our kids.
@thumper1 …that is our experience as well. We finally started ignoring the kids calls, after telling them a couple hundred times not to call us on the landline anymore. Our phone number is 35 years old, so I hesitate to give it up in case anyone we haven’t heard from for years tries to call, which has happened a couple of times. I also like having the backup–cell service and internet–in case one goes out in an emergency. There is a risk though–if both cell service and internet were to ever go out at the same time, there wouldn’t be a way for us to call anyone.
Right about power outages. We have a regular hard wired ATT landline. We are the only ones on our street that has this. Every single time there has been a major power outage or storm, we have been the only ones able to make calls. In 2011 and 2012 during the October storms, and even last summer when we had no power for six days, folks were happy to have a phone they could use…until the cell service and internet were restored…and the power.
And funny, but we also occasionally receive calls from long lost friends. But I thought you could port over your current phone number to other sources.
2 people have recommended callcentric. Anyone know if callcentric vs ooma is easier to set up?
@thurmper1 Yes, you can, and we did–to our Ooma.
As mentioned in a cable thread, I no longer want to pay CenturyLink $66/month for our landline bill. Still deciding whether to port the number to VoIP for about $30/month (either with our TV cable Comcast plan OR our local high speed internet service, which is fabulous) OR Oooma OR Magicjack. OR let the landline number die.
Honestly, I’d be happy to not have all the landline junk mail. But the landline does seem to give the best audio when talking to my 95 year dad. Also I do like the 911 being directly linked to our address and the fact that it does not need power (though outages are rare around us, since we have underground utilities). Also it’s nice to have a phone number to share that is NOT my cell#, when I am worried about junk calls resulting.
While researching this, I might try turning off the ringer on my landline and setting a new message saying something like - “You have reached our landline, which goes straight to voicemail. Friends and family are encouraged to contact us via cellphone or email.”
I’d be happy to hear updates from prior posters or feedback from others, especially those that opted to still keep their landline #.
We got ooma. Costco had a great deal for th e system. It included the premium service for 6 mos but I went ahead and turned it off b/c i was afraid I’d forget and I didn’t want to pay $60/mo. We pay around $6/mo!
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We have been using Vonage for at least 6 years (maybe more). I believe it is $20 per month (not sure if that includes taxes). The best feature is it transcribes your messages and sends them to email (I don’t get them via text). It seems like Ooma is cheaper though ($80 unit and then $6 per month). I am not sure their free service ($6 per month) would transcribe messages .
Thinking of switching but not sure I should fix something that isn’t broken. We also were thinking of getting rid of landline altogether but since it was only $250 per year we decided to keep it.
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Yes. Ooma’s $6 does transcribe voicemails.-0h wait, I think I get an email that there is a VM and it’s on the ooma app on my Phone.
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We switched to Vonage over 15 years ago as the only way to make our local number move with us at the time.
Several years ago we temporarily transferred our Vonage line to an old mobile sim for a day as a way point to make it transferable or to Google Voice. Google is free. We get VM and all calls to our old land land automatically ring to both my mobile and my wife’s at the same time.
We initially kept another landline as part of a package with our cable provider for 2 years but after zero use in that time (other than spam call) we cut the cord completely. No land line now and haven’t missed it. Even our home alarm uses cellular. Anyone still calling the old home line still gets through from the free Google service.
Thanks for the feedback!
So from my online reading, it seems that the VoIP systems have a way to charge a 911 fee and forward to the state (fee can vary by state, from $1 to $5/mo; payment annual). True? Anybody know CO rate?
I do like the landline-911 capability, and it makes sense to have a fee. Just hoping CO is toward the lower end.
Every now and then someone calls the landline. To be honest, we dont typically answer it but I do get the voicemails sent to my phone so I can
Check it. I like keeping it b/c it allows me
No let junk calls go there and Not to my cell. great peace of mind.
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I have had an Ooma for 3 years and it works well for me.
I wanted to drop the landline but wanted to keep 911 service from the home. To check 911 access, I called my local police non-emergency number. The person answering the police line also monitored the 911 line, so I dialed 911 and the 911 operator confirmed that my proper address and phone number appeared, so I felt confident in dropping the hardwire landline.
The basic Ooma monthly charges are only the taxes and fees (including 911 service fee) and are just under $6 for my area.
I opted for the Ooma premier service, which is about $10/month plus tax, and gets charged yearly. This service lets me to do a little more in the way of blocking specific callers and numbers. The highest level of security is to only allow phone numbers on your contact list to pass through. I haven’t gone to that level of security, so I still get junk and spam calls, but the Ooma tells who is calling, and I ignore any calls that I don’t recognize.
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Great info… thanks!
Looking at my current bill for the CenturyLink true landline, the monthly 911 fee is trivial in my area ( .75 county + .09 state = .84/month)
If anybody else is considering Ooma and/or Magicjack, here is a 2022 article
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