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.
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southsound
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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 8:04 pm

darlinsk wrote:Oh my ... I feel a tad talked down to. Might it have something to do with my gender? ;-)
<Wayne and I were typing at the same time. >

I think I can safely say that no one here would do that. Sometimes we ask the simplest of questions because it is easy to overlook the obvious. I was the Service Operations Manager for a major PC chain at one time. But when I bought a new USB scanner I was bummed because it would not fire up. I loaded the proper software, twice. Made sure my USB cable was OK and securely plugged in. Verified power to the power supply. And nothing. When I called tech support, they asked me, did anything happen when you turned it on? I replied, "there's no power switch". They suggested I look at the back near the corner. I told the technician I'd call back when I felt less embarrased.

As to the 5.8 ghz phone - it surprised me to find that many of them use 5.8 AND 2.4 (for signaling) so even a 5.8 ghz phone does not mean no problems.

I had some severe echo on local numbers during a period of time several months ago. I kept track of the calls - time, number, severity of echo, incoming or outgoing and when I called ooma, I talked to several techs. Tino and Bobby are some of the greatest. If you can call them back with this information, they can check their own routing logs. Turned out that my problem was with the "partner" they use in this area. They made some changes to how calls were routed in my area (360) and now things are stellar. I would suggest keeping a log like I did then when you call back, ask to escalated to one of the techs who are most familar with the echo problem. Good luck and keep us posted.
ooma customer since February 2009
VoIP hardware: 2 Telo w/3 handsets & Linx / ooma core
Total Lines: 8 / Numbers: 11 / Handsets: 20
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Friends don't remember what Landline Integration was or why we did it.

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

Re: Close to giving up on Ooma

Post by darlinsk » Sun May 31, 2009 6:02 am

OK; I'll take it at face value that I wasn't being talked down to. It's a sensitive point, howerver. I have a degree in Computer Science, started as a developer and most recently was a director managing large, complex global applications with lots of moving parts. Yet any time I call technical support for anything, I get some know-nothing first level tech support guy telling me how to enter control characters ("Hold down the CTRL, ALT & DELETE key at the same time".) My husband doesn't get the same treatment, and I can run circles around him technically.

But back to the issue at hand. I don't believe the problem is related to interference. My router is definitely 2.4GH. I switched my phone system about 4 years ago, and have had no interference problems since then. The issues only started with the Ooma service. As much as I dislike Verizon, they do provide a quality landline connection.

Maintaining a log is a good idea. I can't expect Ooma to resolve the issue without good data. I'll start doing that.

One more thing, a few posts back, I asked about the new setting below the upload and download QoS settings ... Reserver bandwidth for phone calls ... or something like that. I haven't been able to find any documentation on it. Does anyone know what that does, and how it works in relation to QoS?

desh
Posts:5
Joined:Thu May 21, 2009 4:12 pm

Re: Close to giving up on Ooma

Post by desh » Sun May 31, 2009 10:48 am

Hi darlinsk,
Just wante to let you know that you weren't alone with these problems. I'm a recent Ooma convert and over just the last 5 days I've had:

voice echo - once, at the time I suspected it was the cordless phone. Now I wonder. Either way, it wasn't too irritating.

missed messages - so far 5+ times in as many days. Callers connect, but the greeting never starts and they aren't prompted to leave a message. This is the most annoying issue.

call waiting - I don't think this has ever worked for me. Maybe I don't have something set up correctly here. I'll test it out later today.

Low outgoing voice volume - This just happened minutes ago for the first time (that I know of.) Caller said I was difficult to hear and described some sort of echo or reverb effect. I could hear them perfectly.

I have my Ooma directly attached to one of the ports on my SMC 3MCD3G DOCIS 3 cable modem / gateway. My DLink router is attached to another port on the SMC. Maybe I should get another static IP assigned and use that in a 1 to 1 NAT configuration? I'd like to try and narrow this down to a network issue before throwing more money at it.

The Ooma is using my landline, but I've initiated the phone number porting (/gulp!) in hopes to completely cancel AT&T.

Chris

Ps. I could tell by your first post that you were technically minded and methodical. Thanks for bringing these issues up, hopefully we get some resolution!

ooma_try
Posts:16
Joined:Thu Mar 12, 2009 5:26 am

Re: Close to giving up on Ooma

Post by ooma_try » Sun May 31, 2009 11:46 am

"Unfortunately, my router does not support QoS. "

When I first installed and tested ooma, I got unacceptable performance. I replaced my cheapo old router with a new WRT54GL and then flashed it with Tomato to allow me to set QoS properly. I've had virtually no problems since.

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

Re: Close to giving up on Ooma

Post by darlinsk » Sun May 31, 2009 3:41 pm

Chris, thanks for your post. Hopefully Ooma will do some digging to figure out what's going on.

frenchcamp49er
Posts:167
Joined:Thu Jan 08, 2009 8:42 pm

Re: Close to giving up on Ooma

Post by frenchcamp49er » Sun May 31, 2009 5:17 pm

ooma_try wrote:"Unfortunately, my router does not support QoS. "

When I first installed and tested ooma, I got unacceptable performance. I replaced my cheapo old router with a new WRT54GL and then flashed it with Tomato to allow me to set QoS properly. I've had virtually no problems since.

How did you set QoS in the Tomato Firmware?
Customer Since: January 2009
Ooma Hardware: Ooma Hub/Scout; Telo 04/02/10
Ooma Service: Premier Lifetime (Since December 2009)

tommies
Posts:862
Joined:Sun Mar 01, 2009 8:10 pm
Location:Atlanta

Re: Close to giving up on Ooma

Post by tommies » Mon Jun 01, 2009 3:02 pm

darlinsk wrote: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?
I used to have a very good Panasonic 5.8GHz with talking CID, and it does have interference with my wireless. The problems that I have is similar to your #1 & #4; the call quality is terrible at time.

After I go for the new Dect 6.0 the problems are all gone now.

If I were you, I would

- use an old corded telephone to test for #1 and #4 to see if it persisted
- call CS for #2 and #3

I recommend that you go buy a new router which have QoS support and put ooma behind the router. If you are a tech savvy geek, you can go to ebay and buy an old Linksys that has Tomato support
tommies

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

Re: Close to giving up on Ooma

Post by darlinsk » Mon Jun 01, 2009 3:43 pm

Hmmm ... Good idea to test Ooma voice quality on a wired phone. I'll do that.

Unfortunately, I'm not ready to give up my router. I have the Zone Alarm Z100G (Made by Checkpoint) It has it's limitations -- its focus is more on security than network management -- but it's very strong in that suit, with embedded intrusion detection, and very granular security setting. The next step up (with both security and more robust network management) is beyond my budget.

HankJones
Posts:7
Joined:Mon May 11, 2009 9:23 pm

Re: Close to giving up on Ooma

Post by HankJones » Tue Jun 02, 2009 7:27 am

Hi darlinsk,
I'm curious if you ever look at where your calls are being routed. I'm not sure how call routing is handled at Ooma, but I see all my voice calls seem to go, presumably to a datacenter in San Jose, CA. I think you should find out where your OOMA is going by looking at logs on your router. Maybe some of your voice quality issues have to do with network delay. Delay and echo could be caused by having over 150msec from your ooma to the voice gateways. Even if you do some internet tests and see that your internet connection can support VOIP, this is just a test from your desktop to some other provider.. There could be some problems between your isp and the OOMA provider. They may have an oversubscribed peering point or suboptimal routing. Who is your ISP?


For example when I make a call, I see my voice packets go to 208.83.224.100, when I ping that address, I’m getting an average of 25msec, I’m around 30miles from San Jose. When I trace, I see that I go from ATT to cogentco. After using the system for about a month, I have had minimal problems. Although I’ve had one way audio two times and one dropped call. I hope that ooma has multiple datacenters for their voice gateways, but if not, that means you’ll be coming from PA to San Jose, which will probably add 30-60msec to your voice calls.

Also, I’m curious if you have your cordless phone connected to a ooma scout. I noticed that that’s not recommended, but don’t know why.

BTW: this is all speculation.

niknak
Posts:885
Joined:Tue Jan 27, 2009 7:53 pm
Location:Staten Island, NY

Re: Close to giving up on Ooma

Post by niknak » Tue Jun 02, 2009 11:23 am

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?
This is the one most users here recommend:

http://www.whichvoip.com/voip/speed_test/ppspeed.html

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