Problem with Static Solved

[BluePlanet1]

First, let me say that I am very pleased with my ooma service. I'm saving $75/mo in local and long distance phone fees. It's a game changer that I hope will be around for a long time.

Here's detail about challenge I had for the first month or so with a static on the line and how I eventually solved it. As background, during the first month I was operating ooma with my landline still in place.

After installing ooma, I noticed that when I would call home, I could hear a bit of static associated with the voice of my wife, for example. It wasn't constant static and was only noticeable when someone on the ooma line would speak. While using ooma at home, I'd ask people if they could hear the static while I spoke, and indeed they could. It was relatively minor, but it was annoying and wasn't the crystal-clear call quality that many report hearing with ooma (incoming calls sounded great, by the way).

I tried LOTS of things to isolate the problem, everything listed on the ooma web site and forums. Technical support folks were very helpful. Finally, we narrowed the problem to my home phone wiring. Apparently, the ooma system is quite advanced and very sensitive to phone wiring that may be less than optimal. Once I shut down my landline completely, unplugged ooma from the external phone line, and then plugged my main cordless phone system directly into the ooma hub (rather than plugging my hub device into my wired home phone system and using individual phones w/Scouts at each wall jack), the problem went away completely.

We're still able to use ooma Scouts through the home phone wiring / wall jacks, we just don't connect phones to them (used as answering machines only).

Hope this helps someone who may have been facing a similar problem.

[Bobby B]

Thanks for sharing - especially the troubleshooting steps you went through. I'm sure others will find this helpful!

[aks]

Well, I have also connected my phone directly into ooma hub but I am not impressed with call quality somehow. The dialtone itself sounds as if it is breaking. Lowering volume on my phone doesn't help.

[AngelaKendig]

First, let me say that I am very pleased with my ooma service. I'm saving $75/mo in local and long distance phone fees. It's a game changer that I hope will be around for a long time.

Here's detail about challenge I had for the first month or so with a static on the line and how I eventually solved it. As background, during the first month I was operating ooma with my landline still in place.

After installing ooma, I noticed that when I would call home, I could hear a bit of static associated with the voice of my wife, for example. It wasn't constant static and was only noticeable when someone on the ooma line would speak. While using ooma at home, I'd ask people if they could hear the static while I spoke, and indeed they could. It was relatively minor, but it was annoying and wasn't the crystal-clear call quality that many report hearing with ooma (incoming calls sounded great, by the way).

I tried LOTS of things to isolate the problem, everything listed on the ooma web site and forums. Technical support folks were very helpful. Finally, we narrowed the problem to my home phone wiring. Apparently, the ooma system is quite advanced and very sensitive to phone wiring that may be less than optimal. Once I shut down my landline completely, unplugged ooma from the external phone line, and then plugged my main cordless phone system directly into the ooma hub (rather than plugging my hub device into my wired home phone system and using individual phones w/Scouts at each wall jack), the problem went away completely.

We're still able to use ooma Scouts through the home phone wiring / wall jacks, we just don't connect phones to them (used as answering machines only).

Hope this helps someone who may have been facing a similar problem.

I read that it's best to completely disconnect the telephone companies wires where they enter your home at the telco box. This has the potential to eleminate any funky line noise issues and possibly help protect your equipment.

[Soundjudgment]

Well, I have also connected my phone directly into ooma hub but I am not impressed with call quality somehow. The dialtone itself sounds as if it is breaking. Lowering volume on my phone doesn't help.

Over the last couple of years, VoIP providers have made great strides in improvement of the Codec(s) used in their products and services. One would hope that ooma has also been keeping on top of those better and more efficient codecs, and can remote-update the processors in the hub/scouts over time. As it is now, the ooma Hub sounds 'okay' but has very narrow (limited) voice bandwidth over say a Skype or even an MSN connection. This has mainly to do with the two latter-companies' use of very robust and well-tailored processing codecs which go beyond the old G.711 or 729 compression specifications in quality. And those companies can do this while lowering the bandwidth-usage requirements at the same time... to about half of what standard G.711 needs.