Pulsating buzz for incoming calls w/Telo+integrated landline

[danjb]

Hello, I'm a new Ooma user. I bought a Telo this past weekend and set it up. We're porting our landline to Ooma, so right now I'm in "hybrid" landline mode, where incoming calls come in on the wired landline and outgoing calls are placed via Ooma. Everything is hooked up as specified in the Ooma setup guide, with the Ooma getting the incoming land phone line into its "wall" port, and all other house phones being connected downstream from the "phone" port. We're connected to the internet via a 20MB down / 5MB up Verizon FIOS connection, so bandwidth will hopefully not be an issue.

So far everything works great, and I love the Ooma features and call quality, except for one thing: incoming landline calls. Outgoing Ooma calls are perfect. Incoming Ooma calls (over our "bonus" 2nd number for signing up in the premier program) sound great too. However, when an incoming call comes in on our unported landline, there is a fast on/off pulsating buzz, about 2 buzzes per second. You can talk over it, but it is annoyingly loud enough that my wife is avoiding talking to callers on our house phones, telling them to call her cell instead.

I immediately suspected some issue in my phone wiring, but I have done a bunch of diagnostics to determine the buzzing ONLY occurs when the incoming phone line is connected to the Telo "wall" jack. If I pull the lines from the wall and phone jacks and put a coupler in place of the Telo, there is no buzz. It doesn't matter how many phones I connect to the Telo, a single corded phone, or a bunch of cordless phones. There is always a buzz. In fact, you get it with NO phones attached to the Telo phone jack. You can hear it over the voicemail greeting that is played, and the recorded messages have it (I have one downloaded in case anyone wants to hear it).

I know this will disappear once my line is ported, but I'm wondering if I have a defective Telo. I searched the forums and only came across discussion of buzzes and call quality on VOIP calls, whereas this is the opposite. Has anyone encountered this before?

[Dennis P]

We're looking into a couple of reports of noise coupling in through a landline connected to the Ooma Telo. Is the sound heard on your end as well as the caller's end? I would also like to hear the voicemail you saved which has the sound embedded. Please PM me and we can discuss further. Thanks.

[danjb]

Dennis, I sent you a PM with a link to the "buzz file". Yes, both the caller and the callee can hear the buzz, and also obviously it is recorded on voicemail. I am thinking of going to Best Buy this weekend to exchange my Telo and see if a different one would give me better luck.

[nattseng]

I am experiencing the exact same symptom with my new Telo. Just a wild guess, could it be the internal circuits checking if the landline is still off-hook? Please me know if there is anything I can do to help Ooma with this symtom.

[WayneDsr]

Got the same problem here, just so you know you're not alone.
I've already sent Dennis a sound file.

Wayne

[accurus]

Just plugged in the unit tonight. Incoming calls have the buzzing noise, but outgoing calls sound just fine.

[sdub]

Ditto on this issue for me, too... I just hooked up my system on Saturday night, and I only hear this pulsating on incoming calls on the land line. From what I've seen, it can only be heard on the Ooma side of the call. The remote party doesn't hear it.

Also, it appears to be stripping the Caller ID from the land line calls. If I have a phone hooked directly to the line, it shows CID. If it passes through the Telo, it reads UNKNOWN.

Calls to my virtual number (100% Ooma VOIP) don't have these issues... CID works, no pulsating.

[WayneDsr]

Ditto on this issue for me, too... I just hooked up my system on Saturday night, and I only hear this pulsating on incoming calls on the land line. From what I've seen, it can only be heard on the Ooma side of the call. The remote party doesn't hear it.

Also, it appears to be stripping the Caller ID from the land line calls. If I have a phone hooked directly to the line, it shows CID. If it passes through the Telo, it reads UNKNOWN.

Calls to my virtual number (100% Ooma VOIP) don't have these issues... CID works, no pulsating.

Is your Telo setup integrated with a landline? If so, do you have caller id on the landline? If not, it will show unknown.

Wayne

[sdub]

Ditto on this issue for me, too... I just hooked up my system on Saturday night, and I only hear this pulsating on incoming calls on the land line. From what I've seen, it can only be heard on the Ooma side of the call. The remote party doesn't hear it.

Also, it appears to be stripping the Caller ID from the land line calls. If I have a phone hooked directly to the line, it shows CID. If it passes through the Telo, it reads UNKNOWN.

Calls to my virtual number (100% Ooma VOIP) don't have these issues... CID works, no pulsating.

Is your Telo setup integrated with a landline? If so, do you have caller id on the landline? If not, it will show unknown.

Wayne

Yes, it's integrated with the landline, and yes I have caller ID on the landline... that's why I mentioned that if I hook the phone directly to the landline (bypassing the Telo), I get the caller ID info.

[WayneDsr]

ok, sorry I missed that in your post. I have the same issue and am working with ooma to fix this. I'll update you on any progress I make.

Wayne