[PLUG] usefulness of Cisco 186/188 ATA phone adapters, & Ooma

[Neal]

On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 9:21 PM, C W <elcaseti at gmail.com> wrote:
> How expensive and difficult is it to add several phones in the same house to
> one Ooma line?

Same as any other VOIP line.

Use the existing house wiring AFTER disconnecting from the external
telephone network at the NID:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_interface_device
http://www.homephonewiring.com/nid.html

Open the NID (regular screwdriver required) and unplug what look like
short phone cord loopback cables plugged into "TEST" jacks. This
isolates your inside wiring from the phone company.

Plug the Ooma / Vonage box into any telephone jack near an internet
feed, hook it up to the internet, plug in the power adapter and there
ya go, at least in theory.

I've had Ooma since Woot ran a special six months ago. Over this time
it has worked fairly well, at least as well as the Comcast cable modem
service. I think I've only had to power cycle the Ooma box once or
twice when it wasn't a Comcast issue. The taxes-only minimum service
is missing a couple things I really miss but not enough to upgrade to
the $120/year Premier service. The thing I miss most is voicemail
email forwarding.

NealS