Currently we have ViaTalk - been using it for about 3 years and it's been fairly good. Has occasional problems w/ calls not connecting at all or not connecting right (only one side can hear) but been decent. Price keeps going up, mostly cause they tack on whatever new taxes/fees they can. We started at $200 for 2 years. Currently at "189" a year, but that doesn't include 3-6$ a month in other fees. It's possible our problems are due to the linksys PAP2 starting to die - when the phones act up, rebooting that usually helps. Hard to know if that's really the problem though since it's so intermittent. Anyone have a spare pap2 for cheap?

I was looking at Ooma - since at ~200 it'd pay for itself in a year. Anyone have one? One issue I have w/ it - I don't really want to use a base station for voice mail and such. Our networking gear is all in the back corner of the laundry room out of sight and I like that. We'd HAVE to get a scout for another 50-70 bucks and put it somewhere we can get to it if that's the only way to access VM. With VT, we dial *123 on any phone in the house and get VM that way. Easy and I like it. Does Ooma allow something similar?

Second, anyone know about getting out of Viatalk if we do decide to switch? Our service auto-renewed in April, so we're only like 3 months into the year. On their website it sounds like there's a $40 disconnect fee which seems crazy to me. Plus we'd have to pay 40 to ooma to transfer our number. Can you transfer an existing number to google voice if my invite ever comes? (just looked - can't port to GV yet, but likely coming but who knows when).

We use only local and LD service - NO international so don't care about that. Probably somewhere in the range of a few hours long dist a month.

I also am looking at Future Nine (future-nine.com). Crappy website, but only reviews are good. Say it's run by very good people. It's $7 a month for 250 min and then a penny a min after that, or 13 a month for unlimited. I'd go w/ the 7 and pay a little extra the few times we go over. It'll work w/ my existing PAP2 device. I think the pap2 supports 2 lines, so I'm thinking about getting F9 for a month to try it out while keeping VT going as our main number. $25 to port number to F9 if we totally switch.

I am sort of in the same boat with packet8. Seems like these companies nickle and dime you any way they can. The home phone is rarely used but my wife just won't give it up. Since I have had the same number since 1990 too its hard to change

There seem to have been increased VT complaints @ BBR lately, so it's not likely the PAP2. When you reboot it, you're forcing the PAP2 to re-register, which could be curing an issue on EITHER end.

Haven't looked much into Ooma, but it's got the potential to be a very hot deal. The question you need to ask yourself is whether their business model is sustainable to support long term existence. There's skepticism out there about whether Ooma will survive (although it's primarily conjecture).

Wow.. I wasn't aware that VT charges long time customers the $40 disconnect. I thought that was only for customers in their FIRST year of service. One thing to be aware of w/ cancelling VT is that they only refund 50% of the unused pre-paid portion of your account (or at least that used to be their policy). Thus, @ $189/yr, w/ 3 months already used up, you're looking @ a refund of: ($189 - ($189 / 12 * 3)) * .50 = $70.88. Then, if they deduct the $40 disconnect fee, that's a mere $30.88.

For most VoIP plans, there's no difference between local & long distance. They typically charge you for a fixed # of minutes or unlimited minutes. (VoicePulse has a "local" plan which gives unlimited "local" calling and limited long distance, but that's one of the rare exceptions).

I use a free F9 account (F9 --> F9 calls), and the quality is excellent. I haven't tried their service for actual/real phone calls as I haven't populated my account w/ any funds. You can sign up for a free account (i.e. one w/o an actual phone # associated to it), populate funds, and as an added bonus, F9 (upon request) will set the OUTBOUND CID to another phone # of yours (i.e. your VT line), if you want). This way, people you call can return calls on a line which (theoretically ) answers.

Another company to look at is VoipO. It was started by a former VT employee who tried to change the direction of VT, then tried to buy out VT, but was unsuccessful in both. Thus, he started his own VoIP carrier. A colleague of mine's inlaws signed up for VoipO and they seem content with it. Their pricing is competitive, and at one point they were offering a deal to VT members to buy out their remaining VT contacts (I think they made the offer available to buy out ANY VoIP provider contract, but it was clearly targeted @ VT).

According to the current Viatalk TOS, the refund is full pro-rated (no mention of the 50% like you said) but it's a FIFTY dollar disconnect charge. Even their own FAQ said it was 40 when I looked yesterday...

"Upon termination of service, your account will receive a full pro-rated refund for any remaining pre-paid months calculated from the 1st day of the following month. Activation fees, shipping fees and one-time fees are not eligible for any type of refund; only service fees are refundable as outlined in the Terms of Service agreement. Customers will be charged a disconnect fee of $49.95 per line for all cancellations not processed within fourteen (14) days of service activation as per the terms of 14 Day Money Back Guarantee as provided in the Terms of Service, or within fourteen (14) days of the end of the prepaid term. The Disconnect Fee becomes due and payable immediately upon cancellation and will be deducted from any refunds due, or billed directly to Customer’s credit card. Non-usage of service does not constitute cancellation of service. All cancellation requests must be submitted in the form of a customer service ticket."

I think ooma charges $39.99 for number porting or free if you sign up for an annual subscription to ooma Premier.

That's correct. Premier is $100 a year, so the first year is basically $60 if you want ported.

Our 1-year Annual Freedom Plan came up a few months ago and we went month to month in hopes of finding another VOIP carrier. Was looking in Ooma but wasn't sure if they'll end up like SunRocket, so I just renewed the annual plan for $200/year I believe. There's a monthly surcharge that tacks onto my bill for ~$5, but otherwise, the service has been reliable.

yea it is reliable but with the annual cost and monthly cost it is not as cheap as I would prefer

ooma Premium VoIP Phone System includes $50 International Credit for $229 at Costco.com (Starts 7/13)

ooma Core VoIP Phone System $224.99 at Amazon.com

deals are kind of tempting. I think i'll give one of these deals a shot at some point.

I have Packet8 and they have been fine. They just increased their fees and have also been looking at Ooma also. The Costco deal seems to be the best value, as you are "protected" against them going out of business, as Costco can take anything back for any reason. I would think if the service did not work right for you they would also take it back. By layering Google Voice on top of it, it would not matter what the phone number is, so number portability should not be an issue, although in the premier package they include that feature.

Amazon has a free IPod Shuffle when you buy the Ooma System through July 31, 2009.

I just bit the bullet and got ooma from the Costco offer. They shipped to me in two days, so can't complain about that. I figure that by buying from Costco that I will be protected from if they go out of business. ;>

They do want the hub unit installed in front of your network, but the Costco unit does include a free Scout, so that should allow you get service anywhere in the house. The voicemail can be gotten from any phone by just dialing your ooma number and you are connected - you will just not see the blinking light on the hub. It will show on the scout. My VTech phone has a voicemail indicator on the handset, so that makes things easy. Also, I sent an SMS text to my cell letting me know that there is voicemail. In my case I will use the Premier service since I want to get second line. It will have a great payback for me as I will cancel Packet8 at $31 per month and eliminate (and port) my landline at $28 per month. The hardware will be paid off in 4 months, and after the 6 month trial of premier is up, then just $99 per year for two lines of service. UPDATE, I read that the scout and hub use HPNA, so it is possible to use a HomePlug (Powerline) adapter to relocate the Ooma Hub to a more convenient location.

So far the voice quality is fine, and I was able to send a fax from my PC with no problems. Faxes and VOIP are sometimes sketchy. That was my main concern with keeping my landline.

In digging around, the company's business plan is kind of interesting - they plan on making money by selling other services, like the premier phone service. The hub unit is much more than a VOIP unit - it is a powerful linux computer, and by connecting to your network, it will open up other add on services such as antivirus, security monitoring, and a network connected picture frame. They are in effect buying into your network for the possibility of upselling you on other features. While I set up another phone line, I cannot seamlessly use it until I cut my landline off. Both lines are fully functioning.

Let me know if you have any questions and I can try to respond.

ooma VoIP Phone System + Scout + 1GB Ipod Shuffle $219.28 at Amazon.com

So far the system has set up easily and have had no issues. Have two separate lines and two separate voicemail systems. No problem when using both at once with the internet. I have had no problems getting through to technical support - that seems to be the source of most of the negative reviews on Amazon. Also, additional lines above the one you get with Premier are only $4.99 per month. The are also making ooma interface with Google Voice.

If things continue I will port my local number over and finally kill my landline phone. I canceled Packet8 yesterday, and took off long distance from my landline. So I am currently saving about $38 per month now.

I saw the deal with the shuffle, but felt more comfortable having Costco to go back to if they go belly up at some point. But from a financial perspective, the free shuffle really drops the cost of entry. Again, if there are any questions I will be glad to answer.

I was going to mention this other day, but hadn't completely worked out all the kinks yet, but Google Voice + Gizmo5 + ATA = free voip.

There's a huge thread on SD if you care to read into it.

Basically, Gizmo5 and Google Voice are tightly integrated (you can select Gizmo as one of Google phones to ring) and in Gizmo5, you can tell it to use Google Voice for outgoing calls.

I've set this up with my Linksys PAP2 and what this means if that I can make outgoing calls like any regular phone and all US calls are free. International calls can either use Gizmo5's or Google Voice's rates, which are pretty low.

I just tried this with my old Linksys PAP2 and it worked fine when connected directly to my router. Was able to get a dialtone and call out as well as get calls from Google Voice. Great to have as a backup unit. Thanks for the tip.

NOTE: Calls are limited to 20 minutes.

I'm getting this (gizmo + GV) set up on my PAP2 as the second line (keeping my viatalk as main for now) to try out.

It should work well for you as a second line. My biggest hassle was remembering the login to get to the web configuration page for the PAP2 unit. Now I wrote it down and put it in the box so I would not have that problem again!

I got the PW for my pap2 from viatalk. I tried ti set up google voice / gizmo as the second line, but it won't work. It resets the second line info automatically.

Looks like I need to get a new generic PAP2 to try out GV/Giz and future-nine. Anything I need to look out for if I shop on ebay/amazon? Or a reviewer on amazon said to get a SPA-2102 instead. Looks like it's a pap2 w/ some extra software options maybe.

I know to avoid vonage units, but anything else I should be aware of? For now I'd set it up alongside my existing viatalk unit to use both, but hopefully can ditch viatalk soon and save some buckage. I can't just unlock the viatalk unit since you have to return it

Mine was an old Linksys Vonage PAP unit that I unlocked from an old deal here. It works fine, I have it set up as line 1. I got this email today from Gizmo -



If they really do limit it to three minutes, may not be worth a whole lot. I was going to use this as a backup to the ooma unit I just got. It works great, I am very satisfied with it.

Yeah, got the 3 minute email also. That sucks, but if you initiate the call from Google Voice, there should still be no limit, just that you have to initiate the call from the computer at the moment.

If you have the Firefox Plugin, it allows you to right click, call, and enter #. It helps a bit, but not much.

so they went from 20 minutes to 3 minutes now for the Google Voice/Gizmo thing?

At least that is what they saying in their email and online.

looks like gizmo5/GV thing isn/t worth doing any more. I saw there's some way to get an Asterix server going and get free calls in/out that way, but don't think I wanna mess with that.

So last night I signed up w/ Future Nine. Ordered a PAP2 thru them too - price was decent and it's more guaranteed that way. Just waiting for it to arrive and my account to be credited so I can try it out. Plan to use it alongside my Viatalk account till I'm sure I'm happy.

Got a few other questions, but I'll make a new thread for them since they're not "VOIP deals".

Someone on SD posted: Googlevoice + Asterisk pbx (PiAF) + Free DID from SipGate = Free incoming/outgoing USA VOIP service

With this, you can bypass the Gizmo5 outgoing 3 minute limitation and still use you phone normally.

Something I plan on trying this weekend.

ooma Core VoIP Phone System plus Apple 4GB iPod Shuffle (4th Gen) for $203.97 at Amazon.com

another good deal on ooma

You might want to check out Teleblend for $100 per year. I've been using them for 4 years now, since they were called Sunrocket. In fact it's been so smooth that I actually forgot the name of their company. I had to look at my bank statement to see the automatic bill pay. I've got it for $14.90/month, and that's total, out the door, no addon fees and taxes. It's unlimited local and long distance. The quality is just like any normal land-line phone, unless I'm downloading some p2p stuff at full speed, but then I just pause bittorrent and call people back. My cable internet speed is 8 Mbps. It's nothing fancy, but they're so cheap you should check them out. I can't complain, and I've used them for a long time.

www.teleblend.com

Why pay any monthly/yearly fee if you can have phone service for free?
Go to www.ooma.com and get your service today, even porting your current number.I have their service and loved so much.