Customer Reviews for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
Model: OOMA TELO-F
SKU: 9511405
UPC: 892943002100
This hub works with your high-speed Internet and your home phones to deliver VoIP phone services and supports up to 4 Ooma Telo handsets. With easy setup, you can enjoy unlimited U.S. calling and low international rates.*
Average Customer Rating:
4.3
out of 5
(159 Reviews) 159
Rating Snapshot 159 reviews
5 stars
112
4 stars
22
3 stars
4
2 stars
6
1 star
15
85% of customers would recommend this product to a friend
(
135 out of
159)
Customer Reviews for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
Review 1 for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Features
4.0
Performance
4.0
What's great about it: eliminates phone bills while giving good quality
What's not so great: dependent on the quality of your internet service
If you have reliable high speed internet service and are looking to keep a home phone # for cheap Ooma is the way to go. It is easily setup - plug it into your cable modem and router using the simple diagram. Go to their website to create an account. You can choose a new phone # or port over you current number for a fee. If you go with a new number you will be ready to use it in minutes. For me the quality has been nearly as good as my cable company's phone service was and since I have a reliable high speed internet service I've had no phone service issues in the 2 months I've been using Ooma. The quality is good, faxing has not been a problem, no need for a computer other than to manage you account or any special phone handsets. I have an all-in-one printer/fax that I plug the phone line from Ooma into then plug the phone line out into the main base of the 2.4GHz wireless handsets I have. You can listen to voicemail online, using your phone by calling into voicemail like you would your cell phone or just pushing play on the Ooma device like you would an old fashioned answering machine. The best thing is there is no additional cost once you buy the box - all the main features you'd expect are included like voicemail and caller id. If you want some of the extra premier features such as 3 way calling, special rings, block lists, etc. you can get that for just $9.99/month. Their website lays out the included features and the premier features. I was asked about hooking up a home alarm since I do not have one I did not look into this but sure its on their website and if not just ask them. Overall a nice cost effective way to keep a home phone.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+152points
247out of 342found this review helpful.
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Review 2 for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
Great Purchase!
Customer Rating
5.0
Posted by: RJA
from Ocala, FL
on 04/25/2012
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Features
5.0
Performance
5.0
What's great about it: Easy to set up and excellent sound
What's not so great: It's a little bulky
This is a great deal for those who do not want to lose their home phone number that they have had for a long time, and have so many things tied to it like me. We highly recommend this product.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+2points
2out of 2found this review helpful.
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Review 3 for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
good product
Customer Rating
4.0
Posted by: CSKY
from xyz
on 04/07/2012
Value for Price
4.0
Ease of Use
4.0
Features
4.0
Performance
4.0
What's great about it: it is portable
What's not so great: you need the right equipment
been happy so far; the service is good too, especially the emails
I would recommend this to a friend!
+2points
2out of 2found this review helpful.
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Review 4 for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
Quit working 2 months after warranty expited
Customer Rating
1.0
Posted by: CE00
from Mich
on 03/24/2012
Value for Price
1.0
Ease of Use
3.0
Features
3.0
Performance
1.0
What's great about it: Nothing really
What's not so great: High priced short lived equipment
It worked fine for 14 months, then the equipment failed and the mfg wouldn't do anything for me. Their attitude was like too bad-so sad just buy another one. They said quote "we know you are dissappointed". So OK.... divide $199 by 14 months and it's $14/month for equipment. Add the $14 monthly monthly charge from Ooma and that equals $28/per month. Do yourself a favor and add that $28 to your cell phone bill.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
+3points
7out of 11found this review helpful.
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Review 5 for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
It works well... for awhile
Customer Rating
1.0
Value for Price
1.0
Ease of Use
4.0
Features
4.0
Performance
3.0
What's great about it: low monthly bill
What's not so great: short product life which leads to higher (average) monthly cost
To be fair, on the plus side, the device did work as advertised while it actually worked.
So I've had the Ooma Telo now for for a little under a year and half and it just stopped working. The unit is "dead" (per Ooma's tech support). After declaring it was dead, the tech support guy I spoke with quickly passed me on to their customer service department. They told me that I could buy a new unit for $199... but since I was a repeat customer, they could offer me a deal at $179! great deal!
The $14.00 per month bill is pretty decent, but others do better. If you amortize hardware cost ($200/16 months = $12.50/month), the total cost gets closer to $30/month... which is the same price as land line phones!
I would highly suggest that anyone thinking about this product should do a Google search and they will find many customers with stories similar to this one... Ooma's customer support is, unfortunately, lacking in desire to actually help customers.
For this reason, I will not be buying another Ooma device and would not recommend it to anyone.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
+9points
11out of 13found this review helpful.
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Review 6 for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
Great phone service
Customer Rating
5.0
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Features
5.0
Performance
5.0
We have had our OOMA device and service for about 1.5 years and have had no problems. The price of the unit is high, but it easily makes up for it with no monthly service cost.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+1point
3out of 5found this review helpful.
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Review 7 for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
OOMA delivers as promised!
Customer Rating
4.0
Value for Price
4.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Features
4.0
Performance
4.0
What's great about it: Works as advertised, very good voice quality, helpful support
What's not so great: Very noisey phone support, upfront cost of OOMA box
I did a fair amount of research on alternatives to traditional land line service. I considered dropping the landline and just using my cell phone, but decided I wanted a phone number tied to a landline that I could give to local businesses, charities, etc., to avoid running up cell phone minutes. Sort of like the equivalent of having a separate email account for retailers, etc. To be clear, my expectations were that OOMA would be "almost as good" as a traditional landline, and not "as good or better".
According to Consumer Reports, customers rated OOMA the #1 phone service last year, handily beating the big phone companies. I decided to try OOMA, and purchased at Best Buy because I could return the product in 30 days if it didn't live up to expectations.
Centurylink (formerly Qwest) provides my DSL service. I had 1.5 MPS service, with a separate modem & wireless router. The setup was as easy as advertised. In less than a half hour everything was up and running and I was making calls on OOMA.
After 30 days of flawless performance, I decided to keep OOMA and upgrade my DSL service to 12MPS (my decision to upgrade DSL was unrelated to OOMA - OOMA worked fine with my existing 1.5MPS service). The DSL upgrade required a new integrated modem/router. An integrated moden/router is one where the modem and the router functionality are both built in to one box, versus two separate boxes. I had some concerns that this change would impact my OOMA service, because I read one review that reported OOMA was incompatible with their integrated modem/router, albeit the service provider was AT&T.
OOMA chat support assured me that OOMA would be compatible with my new modem/router, and they were correct. I plugged OOMA into the new modem/router, power cycled, and everything worked fine.
As a side note, on 2 occasions, I found OOMA online chat support to be responsive, and my questions were accurately answered. However, on a third occasion, I used OOMA telephone support. I found telephone support equally responsive and accurate, but the background noise in their call center was awful. I mean, it sounded like the person on the other end was talking in a crowded bar during happy hour. I was barely able to understand what she was saying, and I had to ask her to repeat everything at least twice.
Long story longer, OOMA works with my setup. I dropped my Centurylink landline, and I'm saving ~$60 a month. In my experience, call quality (sending and receiving) is comparable to a traditional land line, which exceeds my expectations. I didn't give this product 5 stars only because I reserve the highest rating for truly exceptional products and services, such as Apple.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+6points
9out of 12found this review helpful.
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Review 8 for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
Works like a charm
Customer Rating
5.0
Posted by: Chance71
from Lexington, KY
on 03/03/2012
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Features
5.0
Performance
5.0
What's great about it: Savings / sound quality
What's not so great: Nothing yet
Should have done this years ago. Ported my old phone no. over with no problems, only took about a week. Had AT&T land line with DSL, kept that until my old phone no. ported, then went with a stand alone cable modem and dropped AT&T (with pleasure). If you disconnect your outside "customer access" phone/DSL lines coming into your house (easy), then you can plug the output from the Ooma to one of your phone jacks in your house, and then all the phone jacks in your house are connected to the Ooma. Sound quality is the same as my land line was, and if someone leaves you a message on the Ooma device, the power LED on your remote wireless phone cradle will blink indicating there is a message on the Ooma (pretty cool).
I would recommend this to a friend!
+6points
7out of 8found this review helpful.
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Review 9 for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
First unit failed after 1 week.......
Customer Rating
2.0
Posted by: Steve47
from Pleasanton, CA
on 02/01/2012
Value for Price
4.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Features
3.0
Performance
4.0
What's great about it: Much cheaper than prior landline, esp. for international calls
What's not so great: Unit reliability suspect, based on first unit failing < 1 week
My review of the Ooma Telo is clouded by the fact that the first unit failed after one week. None of the keys on the unit would function.
Ooma supplied a previous-revision refurbished unit as a replacement, and while this is working OK so far (one week, and counting), I'm concerned about the long term reliability of the Ooma Telo.
The voice quality is good, over a cable internet service provider, and I have found the QoS to be better if the Telo is inserted between the cable modem and my wireless router.
I would recommend this to a friend!
0points
4out of 8found this review helpful.
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Review 10 for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
Good Price, Doesn't Fax, Terrible Cust Serice
Customer Rating
2.0
Value for Price
3.0
Ease of Use
1.0
Features
2.0
Performance
2.0
What's great about it: Sound Quality No phone Bill
Purchased Ooma telo. Customer service is terrible. Voice quality is good. Ooma does not like to Fax. My system worked for a while, then stopped faxing. Contacted customer service. They route you around in hopes you will go away. The first two levels are in the Philipines and the third is in Palo Alto. The first two really resist letting you go to the third. All three levels finally admitted that faxing with the Ooma was on a "Best effort Basis" not Really one of its strong points. If you have talked to the third level of of customer support and need to call them back, you have to go through the first two again and they really fight you. The really try to keep you talking to them in the Philipines. I am going to return my unit to Costco and go back to Time Warner. It works and Customer service is responsive.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
+2points
3out of 4found this review helpful.
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Review 11 for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
Well worth the money!
Customer Rating
5.0
What's great about it: Money saver
What's not so great: nothing
I'm so glad we bought the Ooma VOIP home phone system. It works great and we're saving $60.00/month on phone bills.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+3points
4out of 5found this review helpful.
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Review 12 for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
Works Well
Customer Rating
5.0
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Features
5.0
Performance
4.0
What's great about it: Set up and cost savings.
What's not so great: Another piece of technology in the home, need to consider power backup.
I replaced both my AT&T landline and DSL service. Ooma is doing the voice side and Charter Communications is now the Internet side. My monthly cost for both voice and Internet has gone down from $95 monthly to $33.50 a month. I subscribed to the Ooma Premier service which adds $10 monthly to Ooma's basic charges. Set up the Ooma unit was a breeze and I ported over my AT&T number two days ago.
One consideration with any Internet phone service is power considerations. Obviously if you give up the land line and you have a power outage, your network equipment including the Ooma Telo device will fail. With Ooma's optional Premier service, loss of network connectivity will trigger Ooma's forwarding service. In my case that means my home phone number will ring to my cellular phone in case Internet connectivity fails.
I decided to add a battery backup UPS as a safety which will is connected to my Ooma Telo, my cable modem, and my router. This will give me 91 minutes of power backup to get me through the bumps that occasionally occur in the utility grid.
Set up was a breeze and with us approaching the three week mark with the service, I have no misgivings about finally breaking the tie to AT&T. Considering the initial cost of the Ooma Telo, a UPS, and my cable modem, I'll save about $200 year one. Beginning year two even with the increase in the cost of the Internet service from the initial promo rate, and considering my initial hardware costs will be paid, my annual savings will increase to over $500 monthly. I expect even more savings since AT&T seems to be increasing costs monthly for both voice and DSL service.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+8points
9out of 10found this review helpful.
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Review 13 for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
Fabulous device and service
Customer Rating
5.0
Posted by: BanCompression
from Charlotte, NC
on 01/07/2012
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Features
5.0
Performance
5.0
What's great about it: Works great! No Contract!
After battling with AT&T for 3 weeks to get reliable phone service I decided I needed a change. I did not want a contract, so I skipped Vonage. Plus, I had a less than stellar experience with their service a while back.
I hooked up my Ooma Telo and used it for a week before porting my old number over. Then, my number was ported in about a week and a half.
I love this device. It really works very well. It looks nice. I have been very happy with call quality. I love being able to blacklist numbers so I am not bothered by calls from those numbers. I love the service that minimizes marketing calls.
Also, I have not had a call drop yet. Sound quality is very good. The voicemail service works well.
Plus, it is so much cheaper than my old phone line and long distance service. I have already paid for the Telo device with savings in less than 4 months.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+9points
10out of 11found this review helpful.
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Review 14 for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
911 service doesn't work, not safe
Customer Rating
1.0
Posted by: Bostonuser9
from Boston, MA
on 12/28/2011
Value for Price
1.0
Ease of Use
1.0
Features
1.0
Performance
1.0
What's great about it: Easy to setup
What's not so great: 911 doesn't work, not safe, not worth the savings
In an emergency, the e-911 service routed my call to the wrong city, even though my address is correctly registered. Police were dispatched to the correct street address, but in the wrong city! I worked with customer service for 3 weeks before speaking with a supervisor (Dante) who said it couldn't be fixed and was working as it was supposed to - "you got 911 didn't you?". Not safe, not acceptable, not worth any amount of potential savings.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
+8points
15out of 22found this review helpful.
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Review 15 for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
Great phone system, deffenitly worth the money.
Customer Rating
5.0
Posted by: OhioChris
from Dayton, Ohio
on 12/07/2011
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Features
5.0
Performance
5.0
What's great about it: Easy to use
What's not so great: none
Been working great, only had it about a week but zero complaints, saves me $35 a month!
Easy to set up. You can also hook it up to your house wiring so that you can use any phone in your house (have to discount the phone company wiring for it to work.)
I would recommend this to a friend!
0points
2out of 4found this review helpful.
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Review 16 for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
Impressive unit considering the service is free
Customer Rating
5.0
Posted by: EdFromOhio
from Niles, Ohio
on 11/21/2011
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Features
5.0
Performance
5.0
What's great about it: Easy to set up, good aesthetics, good voice quality.
What's not so great: Initial expense can cause some pain. Requires a fast internet connection. Can be issues if you have DSL and phone.
If you're looking at this, you're likely looking at alternatives to your land line phone. If that's the case, you're on the right trail.
After getting the latest AT&T phone bill with yet another increase in prices, I started looking for alternatives. I mean $82 for phone and "pro" level Internet access is significant. So I went to BestBuy and picked up this Ooma device and brought it home. On speedtest.net, my DSL feed showed 2.74mb download and 374kb upload. Hooking up the Ooma device was painless and within about 3 minutes, I had my new phone number to test things out with.
In doing some testing, there was a noticeable delay. It's similar to the delay most get on a cell phone, but this was bit worse. After doing lots of research, I came to the conclusion that my internet feed was too slow. Even with the delay, I decided that $38/month for my landline phone was too much, so I started proceeding with the "port" process to transfer my home phone number to Ooma. Then I hit a speed bump - if you have DSL and a landline phone on the same line, you need to call the phone company and have them separate your Internet connection to a "dry loop" so it won't get dropped when the phone company transfers your phone number.
I figured if I'm going to go through all that trouble and still be stuck with slow internet speeds, it's time to just throw AT&T completely out. I checked around and subscribed to RoadRunner's "up to 10mb/s" product. They came out a week later and hooked things up, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I often get over 30mb/s download speeds and 960kb/s upload speeds. We tried Ooma again and the delays were greatly reduced.
The day after they installed the cable Internet feed, I continued with Ooma's phone porting process. Just 5 calendar days later (including a weekend,) my number was switched over with no hassles at all. Voice quality is great.
They tell you to put the Ooma "in front of" your router (which means between your modem and your router.) That will work with most homes, but not mine since I have some inbound traffic. So I have mine set up behind the router and even replaced my very old router with one that understands QoS packets (a Linksys wireless router with Tomato firmware.)
I don't think that most people will need to go through that much trouble, but I wanted to tweak it to be "just right" in my home. It is working fantastic for us, and I'm looking forward to saving over $40/month now and yet have an internet connection 13 times faster than I used to have.
Here were some cons that I found along the way:
*There are no handsets with this device and some of the "advanced" functionality only works with their handsets, and their handsets aren't the greatest. They're expensive and they feel cheap.
*For good voice quality, you need a good Internet connection. From what others have said, it should be a download speed of 6mb/s or more and an upload speed of 512kb/s or more.
*Ooma's technical support cannot answer more advanced questions and they made no effort to find out. They just kept pointing me to sites others made which did not address the very specific technical questions I had. I had to find out myself using trial-and-error methods.
*There are no handsets with this device and some of the "advanced" functionality only works with their handsets, and their handsets aren't the greatest. They're expensive and they feel cheap.
*For good voice quality, you need a good Internet connection. From what others have said, it should be a download speed of 6mb/s or more and an upload speed of 512kb/s or more.
*Ooma's technical support cannot answer more advanced questions and they made no effort to find out. They just kept pointing me to sites others made which did not address the very specific technical questions I had. I had to find out myself using trial-and-error methods.
With that extremely long write-up, the summary is: If "almost as good as your normal phone" is acceptable, then this is for you. The web page for setup couldn't be much more simple, and everything is extremely easy to set up.
In my case, the $38/month portion of my phone bill was reduced to $3.47/month (you still have to pay for 911 service and taxes.) Ooma's service is free, but Uncle Sam still manages to get his money.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+38points
41out of 44found this review helpful.
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Review 17 for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
Waste of Money
Customer Rating
1.0
Value for Price
1.0
Ease of Use
4.0
Features
3.0
Performance
3.0
What's great about it: Service was good whule it lasted
What's not so great: Horrible product life
Normally I would not rate a product so poorly but when my OOMA failed to work after a little over a year, OOMA said that they were sorry but the warranty had expired. How do you save money on a product that fails after a little over a year. And not to mention the fact that not having a home phone is a huge annoyance. I must admit that while I had the service it was pretty good but had i known that their devices were such garbage I would have never switched to them. You might buy an OOMA box and have it last for a very long time, or it may break after a year like mine. I paid $200 for the box and $50 to port my number, a complete waste of money.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
+12points
26out of 40found this review helpful.
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Review 18 for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
Poor product
Customer Rating
1.0
Value for Price
1.0
Ease of Use
1.0
Features
1.0
Performance
1.0
What's great about it: nothing
What's not so great: everything
This product did not work for me. My vonage works fine. During my install, the device killed my internet for over three hours. After it came back up, I instilled 48 install trying to work it. The device never worked. I contact Ooma for assistance. They could not get it working. Ooma required a purchase the telo to get the product to work. That would cost me over $300 for one phone. Apparently, you cannot use your cordless home phone with the Ooma. Complete waste of time. I do not suggest anyone buy this product. The description and how it works is misleading.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
-17points
16out of 49found this review helpful.
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Review 19 for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
Unfortunately, Not for Me
Customer Rating
5.0
Posted by: GoodbyeCable
from Thornton, Il
on 10/15/2011
What's great about it: Easy set up. Invisible operation.
What's not so great: Porting your number is a hassle. Mobile app sucks.
Easy set up and works like a charm. However....... My DSL is bundled with my phone.Having stand alone high speed Internet would actually cost me more. Instead, I purchased a Bluetooth capable cordless phone and cancelled long distance on my land line. I now pay $38/mnth for AT&T land line with DSL. All my long distance calls are routed through my cell.
I envy the people who are able to utilize Ooma and all it's great features.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+3points
7out of 11found this review helpful.
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Review 20 for ooma Telo VoIP Home Phone Service - Black
OOOOOOOOOOOOMAAAAA
Customer Rating
5.0
Posted by: JMFD
from Sarasota, fl
on 10/15/2011
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Features
5.0
Performance
5.0
What's great about it: Helps me to save money.
What's not so great: Keeping old phone number.
I purchased about one month ago, and so far so good. I purchased this due to my Comcast phone bill being $49.00 a month, so in 4 months it will pay for its self. I elected to take a new phone number; it is a pain if you want to keep your old number. I recommend this for anyone who still wants a landline, and reduce their bills. Thanks OOMA and Best Buy…
I would recommend this to a friend!
+12points
13out of 14found this review helpful.
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