[PLUG-TALK] Ooma Telo

Keith Lofstrom keithl at kl-ic.com
Wed Nov 29 06:19:30 UTC 2017


I just installed (experimentally) an Ooma Telo, a $100
black box that connects by VOIP to Ooma's server.  
Free basic service, plus about $60/yr for taxes and 
911 government fees.

https://www.ooma.com/telo/

"Premier addons" are an additional $100 per year, with a
few useful features like spam call blocking using Nomorobo
(and also a user-community-driven spam database), and
simultaneous ring - and a zillion things we don't need but
others might.  The black box runs off 5V/3A, so when I
"hard install" it, I will run it off the 12V emergency
battery bus with a buck converter.

We connect to the internet through a Comcast Business 
feed.  The Telo installs with a 503-649-xxxx number
(Beaverton exchange) which we will use for experiments. 

If we decide we like it, we will port our 25yo Frontier
phone number on top of that, and shut down our Frontier
FIOS service (formerly Verizon, formerly decent).  When
Frontier goes bankrupt and a better organization buys the
local fiber network, perhaps we will move back.  For now,
Comcast has improved to become the least-bad provider jn
Washington County.  Being able to effortlessly port our
landline between connectivity providers is a big plus.

An active user community:   https://www.ooma.com/forums/

... and about as far from Frontier's "we gotta monopoly -
screw you!" behavior as I'm likely to find.  If Russell
ever achieves his dream of community fiber, Ooma seems a
good alternative (among many others) to emulate landline
phone service for customers who prefer it.

Keith

--
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com
~                                          



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