Close to giving up on Ooma

Having trouble placing or receiving calls or using your voicemail system on Ooma Telo VoIP Phones? Post your questions here.
darlinsk
Posts:23
Joined:Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:33 pm
Location:Philadelphia, PA
Close to giving up on Ooma

Post by darlinsk » Fri May 29, 2009 2:28 pm

*Sigh* I really did have high hopes for Ooma, high enough to actually port my number over. And I really was willing to accept some glitches given that they are a startup, and the cost is so right. Additionally, I acknowledge and applaud Ooma for taking steps to correct issues such as the long wait times for support, and the outages earlier in the year.

However, there are just too many serious glitches for me to ignore. My husband is starting to crab at me and ridicule my choice of phone service, and my friends and family are complaining.

I have an extremely fast network connection, that passes the VOIP test with flying colors. I don't know if my experience is typical, but here's my list of issues:

1) Voice quality: The delay is significant enough to result in people talking over each other. There is also an audible echo if I speak at all loudly. This has been the case for as long as I've had Ooma, and I had resigned myself to accept it.

2) Voice mail: On a fairly regular basis, I am told that people call me, and the phone is answered (presumably by Ooma voicemail), but there is no outgoing message and no opportunity to leave a message. I have called my number from my cell phone and confirmed this behavior. This is just not acceptable.

3) Call Waiting: Call waiting seems to work intermittently. Sometimes I get the call waiting beep, and sometimes the calls go straight to voice mail. Again, not acceptable.

4) On a very regular basis ... at least once a day, often more often, I will be in the middle of a call and all of a sudden the person on the other end can't hear me. I can hear them. The only resolution for this is to hang up and have one of us re-initiate the call. This started about 3 weeks ago. Customer support has not been able to provide any help whatsoever for this.

If anyone has any ideas as to how to fix this, please let me know. Otherwise, I guess I'll start shopping around for new phone service.

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ggilman
Posts:448
Joined:Sun May 10, 2009 5:18 pm
Location:Panama City, FL

Re: Close to giving up on Ooma

Post by ggilman » Fri May 29, 2009 2:54 pm

Do you still have a landline, either connected to the ooma or forwarded to your ooma? If so, some of your issues could be caused by improper provisioning. Some landline services conflict with operation of ooma services. For example, certain landline call waiting may conflict with the way ooma expects call waiting to be handled.

This does not address all of your issues. It has nothing to do with your call suddenly becoming low quality or delayed. So, I don't believe it could affect #1 and #4 in your list, but it may be the problem with #2 and #3.

If you subscribe to premier, I recall reading ooma will help you get the provisioning correct. Otherwise, I imagine there's a list somewhere that provides the correct provisioning.

WayneDsr
Posts:3790
Joined:Wed Feb 04, 2009 6:28 pm
Location:Northern Indiana

Re: Close to giving up on Ooma

Post by WayneDsr » Fri May 29, 2009 3:42 pm

This is quite simple. If you have not already called Customer Service then you must right away. NOTHING as serious as your list will be fixed writing in the forum.
A call to customer service could get you fixed up, or at least start the ball rolling. If ooma doesn't know it's broken, they can't fix it. There are enough users in the forum that can tell you that a call to customer service and a little patience could possible get you back on good terms with the hubby.

Customer Service 888-771-6662

NONE of what you are saying happens to me. I have a 100% reliable connection, barring of course, ooma being down. Never get any echo, never a dropped call.

Wayne

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

Re: Close to giving up on Ooma

Post by darlinsk » Sat May 30, 2009 5:09 am

No, I don't have an integrated phone line, or call forwarding. I do have an additional land line, but that is totally separate and used only for my fax machine and alarm system.

I have called Ooma support, and have not been able to get any real help. Phone calls are answered quite quickly now, however, I have not been impressed with the level of expertise available from the customer support line. I would like to have this elevated to 2nd level support, but haven't discovered a mechanism for doing so.

The only advise I have ever gotten from tech support is to fiddle with my QOS settings. I don't think they fully understand how those settings work, nor how they can impact general network performance. I am unwilling to trash my network performance for a phone line. From what I've read, (corroborated by speed tests), it seems that whatever value you put in the QOS setting becomes a governor, so to speak, on total bandwidth. If it's lower than your actual bandwidth, you lose anything above that setting. This seems a very peculiar way to implement QOS. Does anyone happen to know what the new setting, right below the QOS setting does? (Reserve bandwidth for voice, or something like that). Can it be used instead of QOS, without taking the bandwidth hit?

lohertz
Posts:372
Joined:Fri Mar 06, 2009 8:42 pm
Location:Far West Burbs, Chicago

Re: Close to giving up on Ooma

Post by lohertz » Sat May 30, 2009 5:23 am

QOS is a little more complex than a "governor."

Factors that are important is how well you can stream data without interruption and that's what QOS does.

What VoIP test did you use? What was your scores.

You will not lose system performace by using QoS. 99% it will improve! because packets of information are not lost. (Edit: not lost, but your modem/router/computer will be waiting for them as they bounce around the net before being reassembled)

With Internet speed the way they are today, it takes more to manage them then previous. A few years ago a T-1 1.5Mbps D/U was difficult to manage because the throughput was much larger than the data being transmitted and the hardware wasn't as efficient.

If you set your QOS to low then it WILL THROTTLE your Internet speeds. Thats why its important to set it appropriate to your TRUE connection speeds.

For those who have "PowerBoost" or some other qimick where you get a burst of speed when downloading, that is not your true download link!

My suggestion would be to listen to the CSR and try it. But make sure the values you use are correct. Play with it and see where you get the best performance.

Besides, unless you do have a Managed T-1 or higher, you're connection speeds are not guaranteed and may fluctuate dramatically.

WayneDsr
Posts:3790
Joined:Wed Feb 04, 2009 6:28 pm
Location:Northern Indiana

Re: Close to giving up on Ooma

Post by WayneDsr » Sat May 30, 2009 6:57 am

Ok, lets start from the beginning.
How do you have ooma connected? Is it:
modem-->ooma-->router
or
modem-->router-->ooma

Did you set your voicemail up in the beginning and create a password?

Are you using a wireless router and are you also using older cordless phones? (older phones interfer with wireless routers)

Is your phone volume up too high? This may cause echo.

Do both you and your caller hear the echo?

Are you over 50 years old? (you used the term "crab" "my husband is starting to "crab" at me", that's a pretty old term!)

Ok, so you don't need to answer the last one!

That's enough for now.

Wayne

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southsound
Posts:3519
Joined:Fri Feb 06, 2009 11:31 am
Location:Harstine Island, WA

Re: Close to giving up on Ooma

Post by southsound » Sat May 30, 2009 7:42 am

WayneDsr wrote:Are you over 50 years old? (you used the term "crab" "my husband is starting to "crab" at me", that's a pretty old term!)

Ok, so you don't need to answer the last one!

Wayne
Seems like my parents told me about people who used the "crab" term. So if you know about this first hand, just how old are you Wayne???? ;)
ooma customer since February 2009
VoIP hardware: 2 Telo w/3 handsets & Linx / ooma core
Total Lines: 8 / Numbers: 11 / Handsets: 20
Lifetime Premier Member
Friends don't remember what Landline Integration was or why we did it.

WayneDsr
Posts:3790
Joined:Wed Feb 04, 2009 6:28 pm
Location:Northern Indiana

Re: Close to giving up on Ooma

Post by WayneDsr » Sat May 30, 2009 8:52 am

I'm right at the age between generations, where "crabbing" mutated into "bit***"*! :-(

Wayne

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

Re: Close to giving up on Ooma

Post by darlinsk » Sat May 30, 2009 7:36 pm

Oh my ... I feel a tad talked down to. Might it have something to do with my gender? ;-)

That said, I've tried Ooma both ways, before and after the router. Philosophically I believe it should be behind the router, which is how I had it for awhile. I moved it back in front of the router just to exclude it as a possible culprit. Unfortunately, my router does not support QoS.

Did I set my voice mail up? Spare me! Of course I have a wireless router. Doesn't everyone on this forum? And no, my phone is not 2.4GH. I switched to 5.8GH years ago due to interference. Phone volume is fine. But good question about whether both parties hear the echo. I don't know.

To answer lohertz's question about the VOIP test ... I don't recall which one I used, only that it came up with all green lights. Is there one that I SHOULD be using?

WayneDsr
Posts:3790
Joined:Wed Feb 04, 2009 6:28 pm
Location:Northern Indiana

Re: Close to giving up on Ooma

Post by WayneDsr » Sat May 30, 2009 7:54 pm

Oh my ... I feel a tad talked down to. Might it have something to do with my gender?
Please don't feel "talked down to". Not my intention if you took it that way.

And, sorry I asked questions that seemed a bit elementary, but sometimes in order to think things out, we must start at the beginning and besides, I don't know your level of experience. In order to trouble shoot we must know if all details were covered.


Wayne

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