Anybody else ditch their land lines? Went with a service called Ooma, mainly for the 911 feature and good reviews. Magic Jack is cheaper but I wanted a whole house solution. Wouldn't have a house phone at all if it weren't for the wife, but this is a nice compromise. The device plugs into my router, and then into an available wall jack. At that point all of the ports in the house are active. Setup was super easy, 15 minutes including the online registration and moving a piece of furniture to plug it in. $197, which includes all of the fees for one full year. After that it's just regulatory fees and taxes, $3.77 per month. And for that I get visual voicemail, 3-way calling, conference calling, and a whole host of other shit I'll never use. Porting our existing number will cost $39, plus we get to keep the new number too. Google Voice integration also, naturally. http://www.ooma.com
I've been trying to get rid of my home phones for a LONG time now, but my wife wants to keep it for now. Really...I don't understand why. Most people I know call my cell anyways. Just need to train her on that too.
My wife just is afraid of change, and lazy. She did give two semi-plausible reason for keeping a home phone: 1) Emergency calls. Having a backup line is a good idea. 2) Our youngest is approaching that talking-on-the-phone stage. We'd have stupid little kids calling our cell phones, or have to buy her a cell phone. Which would be a lot more money, and not age appropriate.
put that thing, router, and cable modem on a battery backup UPS that can handle a couple hours of time. if power goes out, all that VOIP shit is useless. the only good thing about old landlines are the fact that when power goes out, you can plug in an old rotary or pushbutton phone that doesnt require power and be able to talk on the phone or call 911.
Yeah, a UPS is probably in order. And for what I'll be saving I could literally buy one a month, seriously.
I've been running an Asterisk pbx at home for about 3 years now. Using a SIP trunk from Vitelity. Works great.
^^^ Very cool! I'll keep these guys in mind for the next time I port our number. I'm sure this will be something I'll have to do every few years to keep our costs down. http://www.asterisk.org/
How does this compare with ring central? We are looking at going with them. --- *removed for privacy* -Smersh Sent from my iPhone 4S using Tapatalk
I pay for the Comcast phone, but only because signing up for phone, internet and cable was the only way to keep my bill under $100. Stupid that more services costs less. I seriously hate Comcast. I've also never even hooked up a phone to the box.
Yeah, that's how our provider had us trapped, with those god damned bundles. They had us fooled into thinking we were saving money by going all-in with a single vendor. And once done we felt trapped, because if we turned off any of the services it would break the bundle. But when I really started to delve into it we were spending MORE money than by going with individual services. Plus now we're free to move around to whomever offers the best price and service.
What is the recomended internet speed with VOIP? All that is available where I live is 1.5mbs. I too am trapped by centuryLink's bundle scam and would like to break that tie. My only other option would be to pay Charter nearly 800 bux to run cable down our driveway and go with their package deal. Out of the frying pan and into the fire?
For Ooma the box says 768kbps, but you know how that is. It probably "works" at that speed but sounds like shit. But at 1.5Mbps I would think it would be fine. Assuming you aren't using anything else bandwidth intensive during a call. I tested ours when I was still on DSL and those speeds would frequently drop below 1Mbps. Sounded fine.
!!! good news, 7Mb/s is now available in my area !!! No more waiting for vids and Grooveshark to buffer, faster DL's! I've waited for this for 3 years. Century Link (formerly Qwest) must have installed new equipment somewhere down the road.
I'm just glad I live in an area with some competition. 15Mbps from the cable company is $40, 10Mbps from the phone company is $40. Now we just need another competitor in there and drop it down to $20. I have high hopes that eventually satellite internet will be able to compete with the big boys on the ground. EDIT: Got an estimate on porting my phone number from Cincinnati Bell - 5 weeks. During which time I have the privilege of continuing to pay for their services. There should be a fucking law... :angry:
I so wanted to do this myself but I didnt want to buy new hardware, plus I never use my home phone anyway.
There is a law (maybe it's in california only) landline ports are to be completed with in 5 business days.
disconnected the landline a while back, but i was thinking of getting a magicjack, or something like this.. but if i don't have a landline originally, can i get a dsl connection? was thinking of ditching cable, canceled the tv already.. i mean the speed is nice, but i'm rarely home
I haven't had a landline since A school (2006). Now that Verizon lets Skype work on 4G I hardly even use my cell number.
So the port is over, everything is working great. If it weren't for the different dial tone, or the fact we have more useful features like email notification when we have voicemail, the family wouldn't even have noticed the change over. Call quality is excellent.
