Issues with incoming call, long delay before connecting

[the_maestro]

Hi guys. Hope you can help me. Tech support hasn't been much help. I'm a premier customer for 3 or 4 years. It's been working great till recently. I haven't changed a thing on my end, nothing at all.

Yesterday I noticed when I called home to the OOMA line that it took 10 seconds for call to connect before I heard the ringing. I thought it was a fluke so I tried calling again. Same thing. My sister said that she's having same issue when she calls me. Takes 10 seconds or so before she hears the ringing. She said she thought I was aware of it and had not mentioned anything. Said its been like this at least two weeks. I called support. They claimed everything was fine. I stated that it's not and all they need to do is call my OOMA line and they could see. An agent from level 2 did and he confirmed he had same issue. It took 10 seconds before it connected. He said it looked like a routing issue. He then said they would investigate further and get back to me.

Today, I got an email saying issue is from the phones calling the OOMA service and not OOMA itself and to call the other providers that we're used to call the OOMA line and closed my open ticket. This is NOT the case, there are multiple carriers (ROGERS, Bell, Telus and VIDEOTRON) that have issues calling my OOMA line, not just one. And the fact that an OOMA agent called and had the SAME issue should confirm that.

I tried calling back again today since we need the OOMA line to work properly and I got a condescending level 2 agent that kept telling me to call my isp. I'm at a loss here. I need the line to work properly... I don't know what I can do.. I asked for a manager call back and was told it will be Monday or Tuesday. Is support always like this? What can I do to fix this issue?

[murphy]

When someone calls you a route has to be set up and then connected. Until the connection to Ooma is made, Ooma does not know anything about the call.

My guess is that a backbone route has failed and until it gets fixed the problem will continue. The FCC long ago prohibited providing a dummy ring back while the call is being set up. I don't know whether or not Canada did the same.

The only time you get a digital connection is when Ooma equipment is used at both ends of the call. All other calls use the ancient analog phone network.

[the_maestro]

Thanks for the reply Murphy. Is this something that they can easily fix usually?

[murphy]

It depends on what broke, who owns the trunk line, and how quickly they figure out where the problem is. One problem is contractors digging without getting the underground utility lines marked like they are supposed to do. Depending on the ethics of the contractor they may or may not report that they cut a line.

[the_maestro]

Thanks again for the reply. I hope they are willing to investigate this further. I don't want to have to port away from OOMA...