Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Summary of ooma issues from around the net

Security and privacy:



Billing and Phone Company Hassles:
  • Andy Abramson and the ooma EULA

  • No Rooma For Ooma - a "white rabbit" yanks the ooma cord

  • VoIPPlanet - setting up ooma is as much of a pain as moving

  • NewsFactor Network - ooma adds roughly $10 a month to the local phone bill

  • BusinessWeek - The ooma Headache "Glad my test drive was free. I wouldn't fork over $399"

  • Bruce Fryer - ooma's math doesn't compute

  • Cnet - it was a pain to install - our long-distance fees are paid mostly to cell phone companies, so I'm not eager to pay $400 up front to get rid of long land-line distance bills which I don't have


Technical and Sound Quality:
  • BusinessWeek - the most annoying part of using ooma is the ooma dialtone, heard by both callers AND call recipients

  • atmasphere.net - audible buzzing sound on calls, caller ID doesn't work

  • Aswath Rao - technical reasons why ooma won't work


Reviews

The following are some of the web sites commenting on Ooma which appear to be written by people who understand telephony and the issues that Ooma faces. While there are numerous web sites making positive statements about Ooma, they appear to be doing so solely on unfounded expectations and lack of actual information about how Ooma works. The most believable positive things that anyone has said are about how "The hardware is elegant." (I apologize if some of these links no longer work.)

The list of such sites grows every day. I provide the above as a small sample of concerns expressed by people from many walks of life to ensure potential users can make an informed decision before using ooma.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love my ooma. In the first year, after deduction cost of device, I saved $500 from no AT&T phone bills. Sound quality is excellent. I have had no issues faxing. I will probably by Premiere for $10/mo so I can get second number (for dedicated fax) and blacklists.