Most helpful client reviews
680 of 702 persons found the following review helpful.
Excellent design, service and value
By Ashok Aiyar
We purchased an Ooma Hub & Scout in April 2009 to replace a Vonage VoIP connection. We are very satisfied with the hub, and hence purchased an Ooma Telo for a second location. This review describes our Ooma Telo experience so far, and compares it to the Hub/Scout.
311 of 336 persons found the following review helpful.
A outstanding looking and bettered Ooma VOIP device
By Pilchard
The Ooma Telo replaces or will replace the Ooma core system. The core system included a hub and scout. The scout and services of the scout are gone from new Ooma devices. In the future, numerous (but not all) services of the scout may return by way of the proprietary wireless Ooma Telo handset.
For those who don’t know, Ooma is an internet telephone company. This means it uses the Telo to make and receive telephone calls, rather of using your local phone company and it is wired network, Ooma uses your internet connection. Companies that use internet to make and finish telephone calls are using Voice Over Internet Protocol ordinarily referred to as VOIP. Older phone engineering to a home is many times referred to as POTS (plain old telephone service). With Ooma you may replace your current home phone, or you may use Ooma to supplement it. Ooma lets a client determine how they want to use their service with respect to existent POTS service.
[...]. This will grant the Telo to make and receive calls using your current home phone number. Your number will be swapped to Ooma, but still be in your name (you may port it to any other phone company if you want). Ooma becomes your host.
A reason persons buy a product like the Telo is to have low cost phone service. Most VOIP (including Ooma) do not distinguish amongst long distance and local calls. Ooma permits up to 5,000 outgoing minutes of calls within the U.S. per month at no charge. Incoming calls are limitless and not timed.
Ooma has traditionalisti itself as a high voice quality company with it is firstborn product (the Ooma Core). The Telo proceeds to build on that tradition. With any Ooma product voice quality is normally as good as a problem free home phone. The Telo builds on this, by providing higher quality voice than any conventional phone company, and better voice quality than most other VOIP companies by using a proprietary wireless handset. This looks like a conventional land line type wireless phone, but has much better call clarity than is possible for most other providers. This is one of the new, bettered features of the Telo.
Ooma is also very easy to set up and operate. Many people report setting up an Ooma device within 10-20 minutes from the time they open the box. This means they may make and receive calls in a literal sense within minutes of getting their Ooma device home. Set up involves a physical set up, where the Telo is placed among the router and cable / dsl modem or behind the router. [...]and follow the step by step instructions for a free activation. Part of the activation commonly includes selection of a local phone number. Once you have finished the online activation, the Telo ought to be competent to send and receive calls in minutes.
The Telo IS a work of art, it looks very nice, and has a terrifi aesthetic appeal. There are pressure sensible buttons, and just with regards to each button, plus a lot more is lit up with pretty blue LED’s. When a line is busy, or the hub isn’t working decently the color of the suitable indicator changes from blue to red. For example if you pick up the phone, the line 1 button will no longer glow blue, but will turn red to indicate line 1 in use. If there is any connection problem, the Ooma trademark symbol will glow red, this is very easy to see even all over a big room. It normally gives evidence of an internet failure.
The Telo works with wireless Ooma proprietary handsets which are optional. These handsets will help high quality (better than regular phone quality) calls among Telo users. The Telo proceeds to help conventional phones as well. You do not need a Telo handset to make and receive calls, your old phones will work just fine. In my home, I have disconnected the phone company wires outside the house, and plugged my Ooma Telo into one of my jacks. This permits the Telo to run all the existent phones in my home as if they were still attached to the phone company. The divergence is not getting a per month phone bill.
The Telo has a more progressed processor and is overall a more capable device than the older Ooma Hub (the Hub is the essential element of the older Ooma Core system). Ooma has promised new features to be released, which will be restricted to the Telo alone. This makes the Telo a natural upgrade path from the Core in terms of overall capability.
Current Ooma Core clients may upgrade to the Telo, and switch their account completely to the new Telo device. The older Core / Hub may be sold or discarded. The old Ooma hub may be reactivated for a $[...] one time fee, at which point it will be considered as a new service.
The Telo is superior in almost all regards to the older Ooma hub.
The Ooma Telo will proceed to provide free voicemail as the older Core schemes did. This means voicemail will be supported by the Telo adapter, by your phone or online thru the Ooma website. However the basic Ooma Telo plan will not include incoming caller-id name (it will include incoming caller-id number). This is a alter from the older Ooma Core system. Ooma has conveyed the cost of incoming caller-name lookup was significant, and that by eliminating this expense on future basic plans Ooma will be more viable.
As with all Ooma devices, Ooma Premier is free for the original 60 days. During the initial 2 months, a new user will be capable to make free calls to Ooma technical support. Thus any set up issues may be handled by a live Ooma client service representative. After 60 days, Telo users are put on a Telo basic tier, where future aid is handled by way of email and through the Ooma forums which stay free.
In summary, the new Telo is a great product. In years 2 and beyond there will be a $[...] per year regulatory recovery fee for Telo users. This is new for the Telo, those who purchased new Ooma Core schemes do not have to compensate an annual fee ever. The fee is to cover regulatory costs Ooma is charged, not to charge for making or receiving calls.
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