Disconnecting calls

[davrollins]

Hmm... I'm in the NoVA area too, but I have Comcast, not Fios. I typically have about 16Mbps/5Mbps and I just have a corded phone hooked directly to my Ooma.

[mychen66]

I started to use OOMA since beginning of this month. The experience has been terrible so far. Voice mail answering during my conference calls, frequent dropped calls during conference calls. I am quite embarrassed by this new phone system, and it is very unreliable and totally unacceptable so far.

I was ready to pack OOMA back into its box and return it to store until I read this thread. I am debating what I should do now. For these people has been using OOMA for a while, did OOMA have these kind of bugs often? Did OOMA drop your conference calls frequently before these bugs?

[Groundhound]

I was ready to pack OOMA back into its box and return it to store until I read this thread. I am debating what I should do now. For these people has been using OOMA for a while, did OOMA have these kind of bugs often? Did OOMA drop your conference calls frequently before these bugs?

For most people Ooma has been a remarkably trouble-free service, with the recent issue described in this thread as an exception. If you go back to the very beginning of this thread and read the original post, you will see that person was making his first post ever to this forum after having his/her system for "about a year". Some others reporting this problem in this thread were similarly making their first or one of very few posts since owning their systems.

With very few exceptions, most connection quality problems reported by users here fall into two categories, initial setup/configuration and Internet connections. Like all VoIP systems, Ooma is only as good as your Internet connection's stability.

I see this is your first post here, so let me be the first to welcome you to these forums. If you are still having problems there are a number of experienced users here willing to help. While mostly a user-to-user forum, sometimes Ooma staff will respond to individual problems as well. I'd recommend starting a new topic with as complete a description of the problem and your setup as you can give.

[bickyb]

I have been having to use my cell phone to do my conference calling which I do a lot as I work from home and am on conference calls for hours a day. I cringe at the thought of what my cell phone bill will be for the month. I bought Ooma to save me money. Something tells me this problem is going to end up costing me more than I thought I was saving.
I hope when this is all said and done, Ooma plans on compensating its users somehow. This has been a big problem for me.
Ooma - you are losing potential business.
I have told many friends who have been by my house to steer clear from Ooma due to this problem whereas just weeks before I had told them to really consider jumping on the Ooma bandwagon. They all have been making fun of me saying 'how's Ooma running for you now?'
I hope this issue can get resolved quickly or at least support gives us an updated status. This problem was supposed to be resolved a few days ago but still no go!

[sfhub]

Ooma put in some fixes and a workaround Wed and possibly Thu. It has improved the situation for some people (who posted earlier on this thread) but not all.

If you've tried since Thu evening, could you at least post some information that could be used to narrow down where the problem is still happening? Block out the last 3 digits if you need to. List which number is calling, being called, and when you tried. Mail directly to Ooma if you want.

I think that would be the best use of your time. Ooma is already quite aware of the issue and the ramifications.

[2193694307]

After experiencing this problem for almost two weeks, it finally seems to be resolved for my conference calls! I hosted one call, joined two on Friday, May 28th. All three were 866#. I am on CSInet satellite internet connection in NW Indiana. I have been with Ooma for almost 18 months - and this is the only issue I've experienced, but it was touch and go if I could afford to stay. My AT&T cell service is spotty here, so in case this is not fully resolved - I have weighed alternatives and am prepared to make a switch the instant this type of problem occurs again. I cannot afford another disruption in my service that goes unresolved for two weeks, and I specifically cannot afford the negative impression these challenges created in my business circles. If I have to install a hard line as a back-up plan, then why would I need ooma? Just a few words on their Support - I was never contacted, as the customer service person told me I would be. I do appreciate the updates bobby has been providing in this blog. I did receive an OOma survey in my email 4 days ago regarding their support, but when I tried to access the survey today - the link was disabled and the survey was closed - so I'm not sure they really want to know what I feel about their support. I would say that if they had a "premium support" that had to be purchased, I would consider this if it was less costly than having a hard line and promised quicker resolution and more intelligence regarding the issues and resolutions. The "waiting to see" if the problem will be resolved is not something I will tolerate again. I hope this update provides some level of confidence for others that the issues are resolved, and I encourage anyone else who is now "back to work" to provide similar updates.

[Lilly's_Closet]

Amen brother, I have worked in IT for the last 28 years, and during that time I have also worked as an Engineer for 2 VOIP organizations and a variety of wireless providers. With that said I can’t believe that Omma didn’t even acknowledge this issue in an email to their subscribers. Yes I know that our phones may not be working but chances are that our emails clients are.

This was, in effect, an outage for 866 and what about the subscribers that don't read the forum. The same forum where we, the subscribers, reported their issue, lets not even talk about the HelpLESS desk oh I’m sorry Ooma calls it their support center. I am sure many subscribers spent hours troubleshooting their internet connection and their local setup needlessly.

In addition, by not reporting their KNOWN ISSUE to ALL the subscribers that only resulted in an increase in calls to the Ooma HelpLESS desk. Omma do you really think that this is a way to run a start up company…by keeping your customers in the dark…shame on you ooma.. But more importantly shame on me for wasting 2 weeks of my time and two weeks of productivity troubleshooting your issue.

This incident was handled poorly and you have only served to irritate your customers. If someone is listening behind the curtain my expectation in a VOIP provider can be found below with regards to any type of outage. You see we all realize that VOIP is not going to be perfect and most of us have cell phones for a backup. But if we can’t depend on you to keep us informed how we can trust in our homes, how can you trust your Brand? We can plan for an outage but it we don’t know then we just waste time troubleshooting our ISP and our infrastructure. Do you think that that’s fair and is that any way to build the Brand?

My expectations in an VOIP Provider & System Outages

• The information below should be sent to all subscribers in an email when there has been any confirmed outage. Emails are fee losing customers and destroying the Brand is expensive. Your good deeds speak loudly but your failure to effectively support your customer base is deafening.

• Acknowledge the reported issue
• Detail who it may effect and under what conditions
• Detail any workarounds
• Detail an estimate off when the issue would be resolved
• Keep us informed

Moving on

[jad68]

I agree... this should have been communicated more widely to get more ahead of the issue... Unfortunately, I was on the front end of the issue, and had it for more than a month. Hopefully, it's fixed...
I was also MISLED by support staff that disabling my voicemail would resolve the issue (this option is permanent, but hey, if it fixed it, would have been worth it)... as a result, the impact was even worse (another constantly repeating message saying voicemail could not accept messages)... and again, it's permanent...
so here I am now, thanks to Ooma support's suggestion that it would resolve the issue (prior to acknowledging the larger issue and massive number of subscribers having the problem) with an Ooma that has voicemail permanently disabled...
One more event of this magnitude, and I am gone for good, and will tell everyone I come in contact with what my experience has been like... very disappointed that support (2nd line) was unable to come up with recommendations other than disabling voicemail, and even then, that was not the real problem, nor did it resolve anything.
I've been in IT, working for major corporations for 20+ years, and this has been one of the worst experiences (magicjack being about equal) in recent years...

[sfhub]

I was also MISLED by support staff that disabling my voicemail would resolve the issue (this option is permanent,

You might want to contact ntoy or Bobby B. I can believe that there isn't a UI or automated way to add the voicemail feature back, but it would be hard to believe that it nobody at Ooma could get it done.

[jerrygno]

I am not sure this is related or not. I was affected by the 800 number disconnects (which for me now works). Last night we had the need to call 911 and the call it disconnected right away getting the ooma dial tone. We called it again and it disconnected again. My local police Dept did receive the call and they called us back. My Address information is correctly filled in on the ooma web site. I sent ooma an email this morning and they opened a ticket (#37139-84849#) and asked me a few questions. This is the first time we ever called 911 after using ooma for the last 3-4 months so I don't know if it ever worked but it since I had the disconnect issue with 800 numbers I thought it might be related.