I think it is distorted also, but to me that is more because Ooma has chosen to include network failure call forward in Premiere rather than OP cherry picking a bad comparison. Many considering VOIP would be concerned about reliability of the connection but don't need the extra Premiere features. Unfortunately Premiere is the only way to currently get call forwarding on network outage.Groundhound wrote:Your premise is, to be charitable, somewhat distorted. You pick the cheapest Vonage plan and compare it to the most expensive Ooma plan, using call forwarding on network outage as the single justification for the Ooma plan
I know there is always the possibility of a slippery slope of features moving from Premiere to Basic, but I think network failure call forward is not really a "Premium" feature, but rather a reliability feature, and as such, that should be included in the basic service. In the past, Ooma has said they planned to move network failure call forward to basic, but it hasn't happened so who knows whether they changed their minds or it is just low in priority.
Certainly a big concern for folks converting from landline to VOIP is the reliability they are used to from landline and the same could be true for Vonage converts who already have network failure call forward on every plan.
To the OP, you might be better off looking for Ooma Core, which has no additional fees. Also instead of call forward on network outage, I just let it go to voicemail and depend on the SMS/email notification of voicemail to let me know someone was trying to reach me. I know it isn't the same, but in my experience, if it is an important call, people leave a message.
I also think this kind of comparison is going to come up more and more for Ooma with their recent decision to charge monthly. To their credit, they have honored their pricing they promised with earlier packaging. However, marketing-wise, it is a big shift in consumer mind-set. It used to be with Ooma, you paid up front but saved a lot in the future and you didn't have to deal with monthly fees. For that value proposition people were willing to put up with less features and even became Ooma champions because they felt Ooma was doing good for the world. With the recent change to monthly with the suggestion that state and local taxes might be coming (with no grandfather like the $11.75 and $0 for previous users) you are paying up front but still have monthly fees, just "less" monthly fees than somebody else. In that case folks naturally start comparing what they are losing (or getting) for the less (or more) fees.
To me, that is a change from "if I sacrifice a little, I can get big savings" to I'm trading one evil (high monthly fees) for a different kind of evil, up front costs with lower monthly fees and less features.
I still think Ooma is a good deal, but can understand that it is more difficult for people to come to that conclusion with the new monthly fees with suggestions that those fees could creep higher with state and local taxes not currently included. That just sounds too similar to why many people wanted to switch to Ooma in the first place, namely telcos jacking up the fees to crazy levels.