Call Forwarding - HELP NEEDED

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buzzman
Posts:87
Joined:Mon Apr 13, 2009 4:04 pm
Re: Call Forwarding - HELP NEEDED

Post by buzzman » Thu Apr 16, 2009 5:11 pm

I am an IT guy, but not an expert in call-forwarding stuff. Is it possible that the reason Ooma voicemail picks it up is because Ooma VM is setup after 4 rings whereas your iPhone VM answers after >4 rings?

I do understand why Ooma wants to avoid call forwarding loops (infinite looping, anyone?).

I hope that helps.
Grace wrote:
On calls made directly to the numbers on my OOMA, yes, the iPhone also rings. However, as you probably already know, it is the OOMA voicemail that picks up the call, NOT the iPhone voicemail. So I don't consider that a true "forwarding" - it is simply a fancy piece of OOMA software that rings other phones. Highly clever, and extremely useful, but NOT TRUE FORWARDING!

OOMA ARE YOU LISTENING?? CHANGE YOUR WORDING - you do NOT offer CALL FORWARDING. You offer MULTIPLE RINGING PHONES.

Thanks
Grace

thively
Posts:94
Joined:Fri Mar 13, 2009 9:47 am

Re: Call Forwarding - HELP NEEDED

Post by thively » Thu Apr 16, 2009 11:59 pm

It sounds to me like Grace ultimately needs Google Voice (was Grand Central.) Of course they aren't taking new subscribers yet and they don't currently allow you to port your phone number to Google Voice.

Point being, I believe Google Voice offers the most power and flexibility to get your calls to whichever phones (or multiple phones) you wish when you want them.

Also Ooma will support seamless integration with Google Voice APIs.

Just something to consider for the future. Doesn't help you much today.

funone46
Posts:145
Joined:Tue Feb 24, 2009 1:47 pm

Re: Call Forwarding - HELP NEEDED

Post by funone46 » Fri Apr 17, 2009 3:08 am

Grace wrote:
WayneDsr wrote:Ok, so when you are set up as you stated, your ooma phone rings and your Iphone doesn't??? (when set up in Multi-Ring)

Wayne
Yes.
And I just went back into the calling preferences to see EXACTLY what it says, and here's a quote:
Configure your ooma system to call forward to or simultaneously ring a mobile or other phone number.

Note that it says "call forward to OR simultaneously ring....

So which is it? Am I REALLY forwarding my calls to the iPhone? Or am I just cleverly ringing two phones at one time? I think that this option does NOT TRULY forward my calls in the complete sense, because the iPhone system doesn't look at that call as a real call and doesn't pick it up on the iPhone voicemail system. The incoming call to an OOMA number DOES ring on my iPhone but the iPhone voicemail doesn't pick it up - it gets bounced back to the OOMA voicemail.

Bottom line right now - the OOMA system does NOT forward calls - it just cleverly rings another phone if someone dials your OOMA number. However, if you have a land line or other line forwarded to your premier OOMA system via the #72/#73 functions, OOMA does NOT MULTI RING and does NOT FORWARD THOSE CALLS!!!! BEWARE!!!

And OOMA - FIX THIS because I can't be the only blond geekette who wants to do this.
.
When I started using my ooma, I forwarded both my landlines to the ooma and it work fine.
Ooma customer since Febuary 2009 - savings so far $ 1000.00
Ooma hardware Hub/Scout
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lohertz
Posts:372
Joined:Fri Mar 06, 2009 8:42 pm
Location:Far West Burbs, Chicago

Re: Call Forwarding - HELP NEEDED

Post by lohertz » Fri Apr 17, 2009 3:47 am

It sounds like Grace is SOL

Sorry

darlinsk
Posts:23
Joined:Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:33 pm
Location:Philadelphia, PA

Re: Call Forwarding - HELP NEEDED

Post by darlinsk » Fri Apr 17, 2009 3:55 am

I can confirm that what Grace is saying is true. I have Premier service, and a non-integrated land line that forwards to Ooma (via *72 functionality). Ooma multi-ring works fine for calls dialed directly to the Ooma number, but does NOT work for calls forwarded to Ooma by my land line.

QED

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bw1
Posts:1781
Joined:Wed Mar 18, 2009 9:06 am
Location:MI

Re: Call Forwarding - HELP NEEDED

Post by bw1 » Fri Apr 17, 2009 8:16 am

Bobby B wrote: The main reason we have the above restriction in place is to protect against call forwarding loops. There's a bit of development work and testing that needs to be added to ooma's Multi-Ring feature to protect against these types of call loops.
I was wondering about this the other day when I called home from my cell phone. I have ooma configured to multi-ring my home phones and my cell phone. That's been working so far and wasn't sure what would happen since calling into my ooma from my cell phone should result in ooma sending the call back out to my cell phone.

I obviously would like it to continue to work, since I want to receive calls to my ooma from my cell phone and I want to be able to call home from my cell phone too.

Grace
Posts:11
Joined:Wed Apr 15, 2009 2:38 pm

Re: Call Forwarding - HELP NEEDED

Post by Grace » Mon Apr 20, 2009 7:15 am

Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts about this topic.
Knocking this dilemma around here in this lounge with all you braniacs helped me/us realize that OOMA offers multi-ring (YES!) but NOT call forwarding.

As to "looping" - years ago when call forwarding came onto the market for land phones, I found out that if you have two phone lines/numbers with call forwarding, and you forward the lines to each other (A to B and B to A), that the phone calls were never answered, EVEN IF you had telephone company provided voicemail! hahaha - that was a very useful thing to know when you are SICK of calls and messages! Don't know if that's still the case, but I just had to try it out years ago and that's what happened.

Anyone know if OOMA is going to offer true call forwarding?

Thanks everybody - have a lovely day of FREE OOMA PHONE CALLS!

~~Grace

oomg
Posts:593
Joined:Fri Feb 20, 2009 3:59 am
Location:SoCal -- L.A.

Re: Call Forwarding - HELP NEEDED

Post by oomg » Mon Apr 20, 2009 9:02 am

Grace wrote:


Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts about this topic.
Knocking this dilemma around here in this lounge with all you braniacs helped me/us realize that OOMA offers multi-ring (YES!) but NOT call forwarding.

Anyone know if OOMA is going to offer true call forwarding?

Thanks everybody - have a lovely day of FREE OOMA PHONE CALLS!

~~Grace
My understanding is that it is in the works. C/S can set your number to be forwarded without multiring, but that may be a PITA if you need to change it frequently.

There may be another solution. Assign your scout to the number you want to forward. Set multiring to ring to the forwarding destination number. Unplug the phone on the assigned scout (or maybe just unplug the scout) when you don't want it to answer. Be sure to set the answer time on the assigned number to a higher value (e.g. 8-10 rings). That way, if no one at the forwarded number answers, you will still get a message at the assigned number.
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.

sburke39
Posts:10
Joined:Wed Feb 11, 2009 1:49 pm

Re: Call Forwarding - HELP NEEDED

Post by sburke39 » Wed Apr 22, 2009 5:48 pm

I went thru this as well. When I first got my OOMA I wanted to try it out before porting and cancelling my landline. So I forwarded my landline calls to my OOMA number, and along the way I set up my cell # for multi-ring on the OOMA number.

But I found the calls comming to the OOMA from my landline were not finding their way to my cell phone. Only the calls made directly to the OOMA also rang on the cell. So if you really need the landline calls to come to your cell, I think you'll have to forward then directly to the cell.

Now that my old landline # has been ported, the multi-ring works as expected.

Hope this helps.

dmlanger
Posts:60
Joined:Fri Feb 27, 2009 11:49 am

Re: Call Forwarding - HELP NEEDED

Post by dmlanger » Thu Apr 23, 2009 4:43 pm

im pretty sure they don't forward calls that were previously forwarded (to avoid loops i guess)

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