My experience... STAY AWAY!!!!!

Problems using My Ooma? Ideas on how we can make it better? You’ve come to the right place.
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stevepierce
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Re: My experience... STAY AWAY!!!!!

Post by stevepierce » Fri Dec 17, 2010 2:05 pm

huggybear wrote:The first couple months with Ooma was great, but the past couple months has given us many dropped calls, many outgoing calls ringing twice, then dead air.
Dear Ooma Support,

Here is another person with the dead air problem.

When are you going to fix this problem. Been happening since last Spring.

- Steve

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lbmofo
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Re: My experience... STAY AWAY!!!!!

Post by lbmofo » Fri Dec 17, 2010 3:27 pm

stevepierce, let's not get carried away here.

I suggest that we don't attribute every reported issue to the same problem you might be experiencing.

I now have 20+ family/friends with Ooma (Telo & Hub) and all of them are enjoying Ooma without any issues. This could be because they are all in WA or northern CA but I am certain the problem you are experiencing is not a system wide but rather isolated issue.

thunderbird
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Re: My experience... STAY AWAY!!!!!

Post by thunderbird » Fri Dec 17, 2010 6:00 pm

lbmofo: I’ve also been puzzled about the one-way conversation problems. I’m sure most people don’t have any problems at all. If all of the one-way conversation problems were on the Ooma end, there should be hundreds of Ooma customers complaining about one way conversation problems in this forum. And in my case, along with dropped calls, I had this same problem. Than when my router and Ooma device were configured properly, my dropped calls and one-way conversation problems went away. I also have experienced this same problem when using QQ. It turned out that the person on the other end hadn’t configured their QQ program. Once the QQ program was configured on the other end, there weren’t any more one-way conversation problems.

Plus it’s better to light a candle, than to curse the darkness.

WayneDsr
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Re: My experience... STAY AWAY!! & Help

Post by WayneDsr » Fri Dec 17, 2010 6:20 pm

huggybear wrote:You bet I will let you know. I sure hope this is the answer as I really did not want to leave Ooma, but have to have a dependable phone.
Thanks ever so much everyone for all your patience!!
Glad everything is working for now, you are lucky to have that smart son in law around to help!

I believe I had the same issues you did with network dropping out and I bought the same modem/router that you did and all my problems went away.

Good luck and may your calls be as good as mine! Happy Holidays!

Wayne
ooma customer since January 2009
ooma hardware: core (hub/scout) and Telo
Lifetime Premier Member

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stevepierce
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Re: My experience... STAY AWAY!!!!!

Post by stevepierce » Fri Dec 17, 2010 7:08 pm

lbmofo,

This problem is sadly much more widespread than what Ooma is willing to admit. This is not an isolated problem and I am not the only one experiencing the problem. This is a well know problem at Ooma.

Ooma Tier 2 and Ooma Engineering have both been able to recreate the problem with their own equipment and their own ISP.

This problem was first reported back in July and there have been a number of support tickets opened by numerous customers about this issue.

It is easy to identify the problem. The symptom is you call with your Ooma line, you hear the phone ring. Then dead air. Then the Ooma Dial tone.

On the other end. The phone rings, they answer, you can't hear them, they can hear you, they hang up. And hopefully they will call you back and you can tell them about how you have a one way call system call Ooma.

It most often impacts people using Google Voice (not GVE) but direct calls are impacted as well.

This problem does not affect all Ooma users nor all calls. It seems to be a bigger problem with Telo use but we have reports of Hub users having similar problems.

Cheers!

- Steve

oomg
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Re: My experience... STAY AWAY!!!!!

Post by oomg » Sat Dec 18, 2010 5:59 am

I have three Ooma systems; two Hub/Scout and one Telo. The family started experiencing dropped calls on the home line (H/S) although I have had no problems on my home/office line which is connected to the same Hub via Scout. We have had at least 11 handsets connected to the family line through the use of additional Scouts. Ultimately we determined that one of the handsets was the source of this problem. Disconnected that handset and voila(!), problem ceased.

I have also had an sporadic problem at a second location where I have had both a Hub (w/o Scout) and a Telo set up. Every now and then, I will make an outgoing call, hear the other person answer, but that person cannot hear me. This problem occurred from time to time on both systems, and irrespective of whether I was calling to another Ooma line, cell line, or POTS line. Simply hanging up and redialing has resolved the immediate problem in every case.

In order to attempt to isolate the source, I took the Telo home, and no problem with the Telo. However, I still have the same problem on the Hub/Scout, although it seems to be less frequent. Later today, I will swap the Hub/Scout at this second location with the Telo. I will report the results in a future post.

I should also mention that from my experience, Ooma C/S is being unfairly accused of poor service. For example, the problem I described above certainly appears to have been a result of a defective handset. I tend to doubt that any effort on the part of C/S to isolate the problem would have resolved the issue. Likewise, I have called C/S approximately 6-8 times since first acquiring an Ooma system. Overall, C/S has been very satisfactory; courteous and efficient.

Even with the occasional bugs, you would have to tear my Ooma system out of my cold hands... probably much better chance of getting my gun. My AT&T service was not perfect either. In fact, the primary difference between the two is that AT&T was charging me about $200 per month more for less service.
oomg -- Voice Over Internet Person

I've learned a lot here... two months ago I didn't even know how to spell VOIP and now I are one.

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stevepierce
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Re: My experience... STAY AWAY!!!!!

Post by stevepierce » Sat Dec 18, 2010 3:09 pm

oomg,

Yep you are describing what so many others are describing and have described on this forum. I count upwards of 30 separate threads related to this problem since September. It is a reproducible problem, Ooma should be able to fix it but they won't or can't.

All I want for Ooma to confirm that they are still able to reproduce the problem and then get a commitment to fix or tell me they aren't going to fix it.

I want to repeat, when Ooma engineering did the same tests I have been describing in an earlier ticket back in Aug/Sept, they were able to recreate the problem 100% of the time. They were then able to fix the problem and from September until about Nov 15 it worked great. Then the problem came back. Now nearly 5 weeks later and numerous calls and emails, Ooma won't return calls and denies there is any problem and blames my equipment or my ISP.

So oomg, add you name to the list of people with the dreaded, lets call it iCHOP for I Can't Hear the Other Party syndrome.

This is an important point, not everyone experiences this problem and not every call will have it. But if you reflect back or are now aware of this problem, make a note the next time you call someone and it answers and no one is there. We are seeing this problem happening from 3 to 5% of all outbound calls. When using Google Voice to place outbound calls, the failure rate is over 50% and on some days it is over 90%.

When you call someone with Ooma, it will work or not work. For most people it works. But when it doesn't work, the biggest single problem is you hear the phone ring, and then you hear dead air as if the call has been answered, but you cannot hear the far end. iCHOP

Turns out the far end probably can hear you and you can confirm this by asking the person on the far end to press a button on the touch tone phone. If you hear a tone, you know they can hear you. Ask them to press a key twice. You will hear the tone twice. So you can't hear the voice but you can hear the tone.

That is a call completion problem that is occurring inside the Ooma network at the network carrier exchange points. What is happening is the Ooma switches are not detecting call completion as the far end phone is going off hook (the call is answered). The connection is left waiting for the connection. Tones can still be transmitted as that is part of the way phone switches and signalling works.

That is why this isn't a QoS problem, a customer ISP problem, a broken Telo or a broken cable modem. This problem is not impacted by the order of the device Ooma first or Router first. It fails in either mode.

As far as bad customer service. it has been 8 days since my call was escalated to Tier 2 and some 11 days since my first contact with Ooma support on this issue. (#101208-000869) There hasn't been a single call or email back from Ooma in 8 days despite numerous follow-up emails by me. I will leave it to you to judge whether that is good or bad customer service.

Cheers!

- Steve

oomg
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Re: My experience... STAY AWAY!!!!!

Post by oomg » Sun Dec 19, 2010 8:48 pm

stevepierce wrote:oomg,

Yep you are describing what so many others are describing and have described on this forum. I count upwards of 30 separate threads related to this problem since September. It is a reproducible problem, Ooma should be able to fix it but they won't or can't.

All I want for Ooma to confirm that they are still able to reproduce the problem and then get a commitment to fix or tell me they aren't going to fix it.

I want to repeat, when Ooma engineering did the same tests I have been describing in an earlier ticket back in Aug/Sept, they were able to recreate the problem 100% of the time. They were then able to fix the problem and from September until about Nov 15 it worked great. Then the problem came back. Now nearly 5 weeks later and numerous calls and emails, Ooma won't return calls and denies there is any problem and blames my equipment or my ISP.

So oomg, add you name to the list of people with the dreaded, lets call it iCHOP for I Can't Hear the Other Party syndrome.

This is an important point, not everyone experiences this problem and not every call will have it. But if you reflect back or are now aware of this problem, make a note the next time you call someone and it answers and no one is there. We are seeing this problem happening from 3 to 5% of all outbound calls. When using Google Voice to place outbound calls, the failure rate is over 50% and on some days it is over 90%.

When you call someone with Ooma, it will work or not work. For most people it works. But when it doesn't work, the biggest single problem is you hear the phone ring, and then you hear dead air as if the call has been answered, but you cannot hear the far end. iCHOP

Turns out the far end probably can hear you and you can confirm this by asking the person on the far end to press a button on the touch tone phone. If you hear a tone, you know they can hear you. Ask them to press a key twice. You will hear the tone twice. So you can't hear the voice but you can hear the tone.

That is a call completion problem that is occurring inside the Ooma network at the network carrier exchange points. What is happening is the Ooma switches are not detecting call completion as the far end phone is going off hook (the call is answered). The connection is left waiting for the connection. Tones can still be transmitted as that is part of the way phone switches and signalling works.

That is why this isn't a QoS problem, a customer ISP problem, a broken Telo or a broken cable modem. This problem is not impacted by the order of the device Ooma first or Router first. It fails in either mode.

As far as bad customer service. it has been 8 days since my call was escalated to Tier 2 and some 11 days since my first contact with Ooma support on this issue. (#101208-000869) There hasn't been a single call or email back from Ooma in 8 days despite numerous follow-up emails by me. I will leave it to you to judge whether that is good or bad customer service.

Cheers!

- Steve
Steve: Slow down... there are no rewards for over achievement here.

First, the sporadic problem I have experienced is just the opposite of what you call iCHOP. In fact, I can hear the recipient just fine, but they cannot hear me. Immediate resolution is to simply hang up and call back. Not a big deal for me... probably more annoying for the recipient. (Maybe I should block my caller ID, and deny having made a previous call if asked.)

Second, it appears to be related more to the location of my units. Remember, I brought the Telo home, and no problem. Very occasional problem with the Hub/Scout at the second location. Now I have switched the two "offending" units. I was able to duplicate the problem almost immediately when the Telo was installed at the second location. So far, no problem with the Hub/Scout that was transferred to the home although I have not really made a sufficient number of calls to say that it no longer exists on this unit. In any event, my thought is that the problem has more to do with the connection at the second location, or some other factor that is unique to that location.

Third, where are you getting the statistics you are quoting? I recently heard that 98% of all quoted statistics have no basis in fact. Based on another post you made, there have been approximately 50 to 60 posts over the past eight month which have discussed an issue relating to incomplete calls. Now, I'm fairly certain that many people never venture onto this forum, and others simply will not comment on the problem, but I haven't seen anything yet that would lead me to believe that more that 50% of the calls made on Ooma are experiencing some sort of problem relating to an incomplete connection.
oomg -- Voice Over Internet Person

I've learned a lot here... two months ago I didn't even know how to spell VOIP and now I are one.

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stevepierce
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Re: My experience... STAY AWAY!!!!!

Post by stevepierce » Sun Dec 19, 2010 11:15 pm

The stats are coming from direct testing and from reports gathered from Ooma call logs. Then Ooma logs are compared to the Google Voice logs.

If an Ooma call is less than 60 seconds a check is made against the Google Voice Log. If there is 0 second GV call at the same time, it is likely an iCHOP, so call is logged. Then a check is made for calls less than 10 seconds as that is likely a direct call iCHOP.

Just because there is a match, it is not assumed it is a bad call, it needs to be tested. The number is flagged and then a call is made to confirm the number and noted if it fails or works. Numbers are retested several days later to reconfirm. It is hoped with others joining the crowd source, it will be possible to test the same numbers from different area codes and different areas of the country.

Then it will be possible to map the CLEC/Carrier owners of the failed numbers. With enough data points it will be possible to map which carriers are more likely to have a problem and see if time or location is a contributing factor.

It is tedious but it is the right way to hunt down problems.

Also I want to make sure we keep the facts straight. You had said there are 50 to 60 posts and that is not correct.

There have been 34 separate posts on the Ooma forum on this topic and 63 users (well now 62 because your problem is not an iCHOP) from this forum that have experienced iCHOP.

I will see if there is protocol to test for the scenario you have outlined.

Cheers!

- Steve

huggybear
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Re: My experience... STAY AWAY!! & Help

Post by huggybear » Mon Dec 20, 2010 7:13 am

Ok all, I am now officially sad. :cry:
My new modem seems to be working fine as the old one seemed to as well. Saturday, no problems with calls & I started to get excited. Yesterday, 2 outgoing calls to 2 different people with 2 rings each, then dead air. This morning, another one. As for it not being a "big deal" for oomg, that's fine. When I have to call the same bank 5 times in two minutes to finally get through and they have tried to answer each & everytime, that to me, is a big deal. I have a husband for whom, I frequently need to call medical assistance. I have to have a phone that works every time I use it.
As I said previously, I have loved Ooma until the past couple months, especially all of you on the Forum. I don't understand all the jargon many of you use so would have no clue how to apply them. That's my fault, not yours of course. Then, to spend the many hours I have to get this thing to work the way it did when I got it is really time wasted that I didn't have.
I will let you know when the change from Ooma takes place as I have appreciated all of you so much.

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