Ooma, cheap home phone VoIP service

[Lazybones]

I recently ported my home phone to http://www.ooma.com/ , have previously used Primus Talk broad band and Rogers Wireless home phone for cheap home service.

For those that still want to maintain a home number ooma is really cheap and seems to work very well.

1. You purchase the gateway device up front. (porting fee if you want to move your current number)
2. If you only want bare bones "FREE" dial tone after that you only pay the 911 fees and taxes $4.46/mo
3. If you want to have the voip phone enabled on iOS and Android, as well as the advances phone screening it is an additional $9/ mo or if you pay for 1 year they wave the porting fee.

The web portal is nice, the service supports full caller ID with name display (premium for name display), as well it supports FAX, which I was missing after switching to rogers wireless home phone.

Other than that it offers some interesting odd features you can read about on the site, for me it is a cost effective home phone for central family contact and fall back if there are no cellphones around. 911 service has the standard VoIP disclaimer that you must know the correct address as automatic location services may not work with all 911 systems.

[Tom]

Interesting, I may check it out. I'm currently with a place called les.net. super cheap, like $6.49/mo. they have lots of features too, but its a bit "powerusery". iykwim. That said, I haven't had my home phone actually set up in a long time. Though i do have the voip number forwarded to my cell phone, so at least i don't loose calls.

[Lazybones]

It may not make sense for a singe user that has a cellphone. I figure I will not need a home phone anymore as soon as my kids have their own cell phones.

For now it is handy for long calls that are outside our cell plans and having a "home" number for family / household contact for business and bills.

You are bound to their hardware so not much tinkering but everything is fairly slick.

Sadly fax was a key win, we find our selves still needing to fax things from time to time and I hate taking that stuff to work.