Yeah....or get a Magic Jack for $40 (includes first YEAR'S worth of unlimited US calling, Caller ID, Call Waiting & Voicemail), and renew each year for $20.

They're also running a special right now, where you can get 5 years of service for $70 (if I remember right). Even without that deal, you'd still get SEVEN years of service out of your Magic Jack for the price of this thing.

A friend of mine bought the ooma and it drops calls a lot.

Magic Jack is still better.

Way to thread crap guys! I actually own this device and I love it! I have NEVER dropped a call. However, this depends on how reliable your internet connection is. What I really like about Ooma is that you don't need to have a computer on 24/7 to have phone service (unlike Magic Jack).

Wow, I've learned a new term today--"thread crap." Pretty good one.

I bought an Ooma Hub/Scout in early January of this year, ported our two phone numbers over, and have been "off the grid" phone company-wise since then. I will break even on the cost of the box by June or so.

Sound quality is usually excellent, very occasionally a bit scratchy. Uptime has been 100%. I've heard pros and cons for Magicjack, but biggest downer for me would be the need for a powered PC 24/7 nearby. The Ooma boxes sit hidden away, next to the DSL modem and WiFi router.

BTW, yes, we use DSL. Phone company can provide a DSL "dry line" (without voice phone service) for a low price. We get our 1.5mbit/512kbit line for $30/mo.

The Hub/Scout is year-old technology, and I bought it because it could handle two separate house lines. The Ooma Telo is a much sexier unit if all you need is a single line.

So, very bullish on Ooma. Read the Amazon reviews--very positive.

... so free it's on sale for $165

Magic Jack installs spyware to watch every web site you visit. So, you're paying them to get spied AND they are selling your personal browsing data for more money. Nice.

The only way I'd use Magic Jack is if I had a dedicated PC just for it and never used it for any other purpose.

#3 is correct. VoIP works great, but only if you have a solid, never drops, internet connection. Before you claim to have a solid connection, you need to run a connection monitor for 30 days validating both up and downstream connectivity every 10 seconds. Only then will you really know how good your connection is. Mine drops for about 3 minutes every other week on Thursday afternoons - right when I meet with the CEO of my company. I use a cell phone on those days.

Guys, I have an Ooma box and I love it. Never had a dropped call. A very important piece of the pie is a good router that supports QoS. My WL-520GU running tomato does the best job so far. I've had it since December and I'm about to break even, even after porting my home #. POTS lines get taxed like nuts, DSL does not, so I just pay $29.99 each month.

By the way, there is a way with particular routers to have Magic Jack connected to them 24/7 without the need for a PC. Google is your friend here.

Don't forget the cost of keeping your PC on all the time for MagicJack. Though I would imagine if you have a low power PC it would not amount to a whole lot.

I have an Ooma and the call quality has been fantastic. I might of had a couple of dropped calls but I've been very happy with it. It's also great that I broke even with it.

By contrast my friend had MJ hooked up to one of his spare PCs which I believe is 1.8GHz AMD Athlon with 512MB RAM running XP. The call quality was absolutely horrible. We had all kinds disconnects and the software it installs brings the PC to it's knees. Needless to say I always talk to him on his cell phone. And that includes when he calls me.

Ooma blows magicjack, Skype, and all the rest out of the water. I've had it for 2 years and perfect call quality, no dropped calls, and best of all not a single phone bill!!!!

As long as you have a reliable ISP and decent bandwith this is great. Your only risk is that Ooma goes out of business right after you buy it in which case you will be SOL.

Ooma is great and they don't sell your number.

7 months and not one single complaint.

I can't even say that about my toaster.

what incentive do they have to keep this running? What if another company comes out with competition or for whatever reason they stop selling enough to pay to keep the service going?
I hope it works out, I really do, but from a business standpoint they would save money (or make more) by stopping support as soon as sales drop.

Open a command prompt & type:

ping www.google.com -t

If you get a "Request Timed Out" you don't need Ooma until you get your internet connection straightened out.

Used Ooma for over a year - good product. $165 is a good price too.

I wouldn't say Ooma is perfect, but I've been disconnected from "Ma Bell" for about 3 months (running cable for internet) and an occasional glitch is well worth not having to send a check to good ol' ma every month. Not too mention that I'm getting caller ID, call waiting, and other fancy features I was never willing to pay extra for with my land line.

And if anyone questions how I can tolerate an occasional glitch, over the "superior" reliability of a good old land line, I spent three days last fall with NO land line and NO internet (DSL at the time) because of some maintenance work the phone guys were doing down the street. Apparently someone crossed the pair that served my house and it took two different techs and several hours to troubleshoot and repair the issue. Then there is how my land line used to always develop static when it rained (and sometimes someone else's calls would bleed into mine.) No, so far at least, Ooma combined with cable internet beats the land line hands down.

my ooma died a few days ago... waiting on support to call me back...

Looks like a good price on this.. pulling the trigger.

@MagicJack people: Frankly, if you factor in the cost of having to leave a computer on for phone, you're not getting free phone, add to that the spyware, and magic jack is NOT a deal.

@Spotty connection people : If you have a spotty connection, not only are you not ready for Ooma, you're really not ready for any voip.

Ooma is awesome. To those saying you need a router that supports QoS, that's not true. The preferred config for Ooma puts it on your network perimeter and IS a QoS device for all network traffic (that is, it throttles your connection for max call quality). That said, you can put it behind your network router, but why would you?

If you're on the fence about this get one. Install it like this: Modem > Ooma > Router. Put Ooma, your Cable modem, and your base phone on a cheap UPS, and you're going to be pleased. Just think of this as the last landline bill you're going to have to pay ever.

No, I don't work for, nor am I related to anyone that works for, Ooma.

Free calls? I'm in.

use over a year, never dropped call. I use Verizon FIOS.

out of stock.. and they canceled my order

Now I'm glad, I guess.. it looks like some interesting, new features will only be available with the Telo (Google Voice, an iphone app, etc)