Ooma Forums

I have two separate phone lines with their own phone #'s coming into my home.
Right now I have OOMA running through line #1 (both are still connected to our landline phone service provider).
My question:

Can I port both #s into my OOMA ?

I am assuming that I can set up different incoming rings to tell the difference between the two phone #'s).
Both existing phone lines can be physically wired together so all phone jacks are tied together.

To have two phone #s, you need to subscribe to Premier service. Assuming you do this then yes, you can port both #s. The porting of the first is free if you pay a year in advance for Premier. The second port costs $39.99.

Once you have two lines, you can have separate ring tones. You could even have them ring on different devices (hubs/scouts) if you want, rather than just separate ring tones, another Premier feature.

Generally speaking, ooma doesn't use your phone wiring in the traditional sense. It uses it to communicate with scouts, but under normal setups, you need a scout on each physical phone jack that you want connected. As such, there's no difference between "line 1" and "line 2" on the wire with ooma, the capability of splitting lines resides in the scouts & hubs themselves.

That being said, there are less standard ooma setups where people activate their entire house off of one device, and you can find that info elsewhere on the boards if that's what you want to do. I haven't done this personally but plan to do so soon.

So, it depends on what kind of setup you are really going for, but there may be no need for you to actually use your 2nd set of wires to have two distinct phone lines, but you could if you want.

Your answer sounds as if OOMA will do what I need.
I have my mother-in-law living with us at one end of the house. I have done what I can to give her as much independence as possible. I gave her her own phone line and with that her own home #. It runs me over 100.00 a month for the 2 lines and with the times as they are.....cutting costs where I can.
Since her line is a physically separate line, I can splice together ours with hers at the entry junction box to create a common phone circuit then using the scout I should be able to allow her to keep her own phone with her own #.

If this is correct then I'm ecstatic !

Thanks for the insight.

Yes, you can do what you want with a single phone line. Once you get it set up on a single phone line, in the lounge, go to preferences->phone numbers & from there you can "assign a device". You can pick a scout or hub and assign a phone # to it. When that phone number is called, only the phone attached to that device will ring. The other devices will ring to your other phone #.

This is exactly how I have my fax machine set up. I assigned one phone # to the hub, which is where I have my fax connected. When someone dials my fax#, the fax can immediately pick up since there should be no worries of a voice call. Likewise, when people call my voice #, the fax does not ring.

Furthermore, you can both be on the phone at the same time, so it is really like having 2 lines. All for a much lower cost.

As I said earlier though, you will need a subscription to Premier to get these features, but compared to the $100/month you are paying now, it is minimal. Premier costs about $100/year if you pay for the full year in advance. Plus, it will give you the free porting of your first phone #.

Also, when you set your phones up this way, you will each have your own separate voice mails & each have your own log-in to the ooma lounge to change settings. So, you really do have a pretty good level of independence.

Thanks for the information. It's a big help. I appreciate your time!

For those of you using two Ooma lines, each assigned to its own device, can any of you call from Ooma line 1 to Ooma line 2, and vice versa, and be able to talk to each other? That's what I'd like to do but it goes directly into voice mail. In another forum posting, someone said you can dial the # sign after you dial the 7 digit number and then be able to talk to each other. However, this only works for me when calling from line 1 to line 2, and won't work when calling from line 2 to line 1.

Anyone experience this or work out a solution?

Make sure you have 10 digit dialing checked in the lounge on both phone numbers.

Wayne

Yes, 10-digit dialing is enabled in both. Can anyone else get the calls to work both ways?