Texting

[JimmyCrackCorn]

Again Texting: Many contacts, Google for instance, requires a phone to which to send a text for mail recovery. Unfortunately I gave them my Ooma number …. It seems a simple thing, although maybe not, that Ooma could allow texts to be accessed online for just this type of situation.

[oomamaniacal]

+1

[murphy]

Ooma is an analog phone system. Texting is only supported on digital phone systems, like cell phones.

[JimmyCrackCorn]

Digital voice is handled in one way or another. Why not text? Ooma collects voicemail and creates a text file. So whether that voice is analog or digital Ooma receives the transmission. If their equipment can recognize that a transmission is digital or be made to recognize the message as digital, it seems to be an eminently doable change. I'm certain that Ooma's management and technicians have thought this out as there is money in it but they have nixed the idea. I'm just uncertain as to why since it does seem easily doable.

[murphy]

Ooma communicates with all of the analog phone companies in the country. Ooma is only digital when two Ooma customers talk to each other. That call never leaves Ooma's servers. A call to or from any other phone company goes through the existing ancient analog backbone network. That network only supports analog. To send digital on an analog network requires those ancient 300 to 14400 baud modems. I don't expect Ooma to ever give that serious consideration.

[JimmyCrackCorn]

I guess I have a simplistic idea as to how this works. It just seems to me that as a call/text comes into Ooma that transaction is identified as analog or digital. If digital then is it a call or a text. If a call then connect to user. If text just send it to a file accessible by the user to which it is sent. Oh well I guess Vontage, RingCentral etc can't do it either even though they charge a lot more.