I've had Ooma premier for about 4-5 months. I switched to it from Vonage.
Vonage went down a lot. LOTS of downtime with Vonage.
What I did NOT like about Vonage was that they gave me a phone number that previously belonged to a woman that owed for something and bill collectors called and harassed ME for the whole year and a half that I had it.
I had no way to block the calls. I sleep days and they would call and wake me and really p*** me off!
I got sick of that and when I saw that Ooma has blacklists and community pooled blacklists I knew that was what I had to have. It was a no brainer.
I love Ooma now. I have received ZERO calls that I should not receive. Not one telemarketeer or political parasite, nothing, zero, zip, nada, nein, nyet!
But, the built in speaker blew out and I was unable to use the Telo to listen to voice mail so I called them and they shipped me a replacement no charge, just came in today with a pre-paid return shipping label for the bad gadget.
I really, really like that I can configure it so that if i dial 911 for any reason it will send a text message to my dad's cell phone and another if I choose to alert him to check on me.
My dad has been paying AT&T like $90 a month for a land line, he makes a lot of long distance calls and is hounded by telemarketeers and it's getting on his nerves.
So I ordered an Ooma Telo for him, I need to go over to his place and begin the process of setting it up for him. He's getting the premier service to block the tele-vermin and most of all, the 911 alert service.
I wish they would have had that last year when my mom passed away. She was able to call 911 but it was more than an hour before I was notified by the grapevine. :cry:
This thing about Dish Network though, something ain't right with that.. $20+ a month? I see zero benefits to going with that "deal"...
I purchased my Ooma and my dad's Ooma through Amazon, we own the devices outright now and all we have are the monthly bills which are about $13 a month with no obligations or contracts.
I got a brand new number assigned by Ooma that no one had previously owned and that's how I wanted that.
My dad is porting his old number that they had for 40+ years so he's going to pay a year's service to have the porting charge waived.
It's going to pay for itself 100% within the first 2 months just from the savings in long distance calls.
For his infrequent European calls he can still save a LOT over AT&T though it will cost more than the base charges but he's good with that.
Another nice thing is that supposedly, when you make an Ooma to Ooma call the voice quality is supposed to be far superior to a standard call to a POTS line. So they claim on their website. That remains to be seen and I'm hoping that's true.
I like Ooma and recommend it to my friends and family but I would not recommend the Ooma / Dish offer, it makes no sense. Just buy the box outright and save in the long run.
The Dish deal, you would pay like $120 for the device and $120 for a year of premier service PLUS taxes. But after the first year is up? You'll continue to pay twice as much for monthly service as others. THAT does not make sense!
