Every once in a while, people pop up here asking about alternate telephone services, instead of The Phone Company.

Per email that I received this morning, via Amazon's mailing list, OOMA is on sale today.

I have not used OOMA -- with my hearing impairment I have no use at all for fixed base phone service -- but I have never heard anything but praise for this service.

Amazon link

I've had one for over 7 years. Can't tell you how much it has saved me over the "regular" landline, but it's a lot! Very reliable (as reliable as your internet).
Total annual cost about $75.00

Is it the same as Vonsge and similar?

I have used MagicJack for years and here lately the quality has gone down hill substantially yet I went from 10mbps to 50mbps.

My renewal is at the end of the month So I have been looking to give Ooma a try.

Am I able to port my number from MagicJack?

Is this any different/better than the VOIP phone service bundled with my Comcast subscription?

Different... yes, better... debatable.

I have voip through Spectrum (formerly Time Warner). I have a home office and fax a couple of times a week for my reports. Can't fax using Traditional voip, but I can using my voip through the modem.
Im told it has to do with the way the signal is directly connected to the cable and not passing through a router. I don't know enough to challenge that reasoning, all I know is that when faxing, MagicJack and Ooma won't work for me.

I too have been exploring options to ditch my land line service. Since the wife won't let me cancel it outright, I'm looking for the cheapest way I can find to keep it. Ooma, and Vonage now have ongoing costs they charge (primarily for telecommunications taxes) along with the costs of the hardware, and I didn't have interest in MagicJack for several other reasons.

While searching, I found the Obihai box and Google Voice, which I believe will be my new landline replacement option. Here's a video that explains the option fairly well. The only wrinkle is E911 service, for which there is a work around if that's important to you.



The upside to this setup for me (beyond cost) is the flexibility in controlling incoming phone calls and storing voicemail forever in my Google account.

Ooma's site says it can port my number so I figured I would give it a go.

For some reason it gave me an extra 10% off the 63.00.
Plus tax and minus my 5% cash back it cost me $53.

Well slash that idea.
Got deeper into the fine print. One has to sign up for their premier service for a year $120 or pay $40 to port the number.
No thanks.

That would make the cost 3 years of magic jack.

quote:

Originally posted by ChicagoSigMan:
Is this any different/better than the VOIP phone service bundled with my Comcast subscription?

I ported our number from Comcast 4 years ago. I like OOMA better, for a number of reasons. It's as simple or as sophisticated as I need, and it works.

The cost is $120 once a year, plus about $4 or $5 a month for local taxes and probably FCC fees.