Losing confidence in Ooma after 10 years

[lsitongia]

This is a letter to Ooma. I am not asking for help or answers in this thread. There's no reason for other forum members to reply to this. I don't see a good way to reach Ooma's management, so I'm using this forum post.

I've been a customer since August 2011. I used the original Telo for 10 years, under the basic plan, without complaints. Early this year I decided to get the Premium plan and a water leak sensor and upgraded to the latest Telo. I don't know which model it is. It says Rev. A03 on the bottom. I had trouble with that from the beginning and was sent a replacement. I continue to have frequent trouble with it. I think the Telo is a lemon.

The Telo periodically loses function. I don't know why. The Internet at my home is fast and is working. Frequently, the Telo blinks alternating red and blue. No one can explain what that means. Ooma's outsourced support does not seem to be well informed and so provides little technical help. Basically, reset the Telo, send a replacement, bye-bye. Last one, via chat, just terminated the chat after resetting the Telo.

Setting up the water leak sensor was a nightmare. Pushing the paid plan, hiding the free monitoring, is a disturbing corporate policy.

I've been shopping around for a different VoIP provider. I haven't switched yet, but I keep looking every time I deal with the frustration that I've only experienced this year with this new equipment. If anything, I'll probably drop VoIP altogether.

[xBroker]

I've been with them as long or longer. I have the original ooma with no wireless. I can't use any wireless devices, so this has been my only phone for a dozen years or so. Took me all the way to retirement. Served me as a snowbird as I took it between homes. It was ideal for that. Now it has stopped working in the last few weeks. 2 or 4 lights on. They finally sent the kill switch to us original ooma users?

Ooma doesn't even sell units that aren't wireless anymore, so it's not even an option. I opted for the pay plan, but could have chosen the free for life option which I think I'll got to if they can't fix this. It's actually worthless either way, other than I can maybe harvest those numbers. Sad day in ooma-ville.

[stevenjklein]

Ooma doesn't even sell units that aren't wireless anymore, so it's not even an option.

Actually, they do. I bought one earlier this week. I bought it from Amazon, but you can buy it directly from Ooma:

The wired one is called Ooma Telo, and the wireless (which is $30 more) is Ooma Telo Air.

You can find them both for sale on this web page.

I've been paying phone bills for ≈40 years, and I don't even want to think about how much I've been to Ma Bell (and her descendants and competitors) over the years.

I paid under $90 for my Telo bundled with an optional handset. If it dies after 5 years, then I will have paid $18/year for phone service. I consider that a great deal. And if it lasts 10 years or longer (as yours apparently has), then I'll have paid less than $9/year, which is a specular deal.

[Robek]

All of the Telo products, (including the Telo Air, and Telo 4G), support wired Ethernet connections.