Telo: red light daily

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stevepierce
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Re: Telo: red light daily

Post by stevepierce » Sat Dec 18, 2010 6:29 pm

Takafoomi,

Did you say you are using Comcast? If so, are you renting your modem. If so, just take it in and get a new one. You likely will and with faster speeds because your new modem will be a later DOCSIS version.

Comcast won't charge you for the exchange.

- Steve

Takafoomi
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Re: Telo: red light daily

Post by Takafoomi » Sat Dec 18, 2010 7:20 pm

Steve,

I'm actually a Time Warner Cable customer. I'm sure they'd exchange it for me.. but I suspect it'd still be low end. I do not have a non-interruptable power supply but I could look into it to service my router and modem. The ooma gets a standard outlet in my bedroom..

David

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stevepierce
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Re: Telo: red light daily

Post by stevepierce » Sat Dec 18, 2010 7:40 pm

If you have had your cable modem for a while, by all means upgrade. The new DOCSIS 3.0 modems are capable of much higher speeds.

A UPS is an additional expense and it it may not fix yur problem, but you will still benefit from it as your Ooma phone service and your Internet connection will continue to work during a power outage until the UPS dies.

Hope this helps, please post and let us know how it works out for you.

- Steve

Kurtois
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Re: Telo: red light daily

Post by Kurtois » Sun Dec 26, 2010 2:30 pm

I, too, am encountering the "red light daily" phenomenon.

My Topology:

Cable Modem -> Ooma Telo (HOME Internet port) -> Router (WAN port) w/DynDNS configured

I have been encountering the "red light", i.e. Ooma logo on telo device shows flashing red, on a daily basis. In order to do some diagnosis, I setup monitoring of my cable modem using dslreports.com line monitoring service. On a fairly consistent basis, I was seeing my router stop responding to ping requests roughly after midnight CST.

Can I get a hand on some things to try?

One other note, the Telo is running v1.4x firmware, as I do recall.

On a side note, is there a way to configure things with the current topology such that I may see my Ooma Telo's configuration screens externally *in a secure manner*?

murphy
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Re: Telo: red light daily

Post by murphy » Sun Dec 26, 2010 2:52 pm

Use Remote Desktop or pcAnywhere to take control of a PC connected to your router. You can then safely access the Ooma config page from that computer.

If you have DynDNS configured in the router, it probably doesn't work. Most routers report the the WAN IP address of the router instead of the public IP address. With Ooma ahead of a router the only way I got it to work was to disable the client in the router and run the DynDNS supplied client software on a 24/7 PC.
Customer since January 2009
Telo with 2 Handsets, a Linx, and a Safety Phone
Telo2 with 2 Handsets and a Linx

Kurtois
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Re: Telo: red light daily

Post by Kurtois » Sun Dec 26, 2010 3:05 pm

Murphy - Thanks for the info.

With the Telo directly connected to the modem, how then can I account for the flashing "red light"?

thunderbird
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Re: Telo: red light daily

Post by thunderbird » Sun Dec 26, 2010 3:21 pm

Kurtois:

Something else to try:

a. Access your Ooma Telo “home port” by plugging in a patch (network) cable from the Ooma Telo home port to a computer’s network card port. Sometimes you have to restart your computer after installing the patch cable, so that a proper connection occurs.
b. Type http://setup.ooma.com in you browser address window and hit enter. The “Ooma Setup” window opens.
c. In the left hand Navigation window, select “Network”.
d. Under “Network Settings” go to network connection: select the down arrow with your mouse and select “Automatic”.

(e thru h deleted)

i. Under “Modem Port MAC Address”, select Use Built in:
ii. Select the Update button.
f. Do a “cold boot” of the Ooma Telo.
g. After the Ooma cold boot, do a “cold boot” of the Router.

If you can't connect, move the Ooma device after the router. Reboot modem, than router, than Ooma device.

Try it and good luck.

Takafoomi
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Re: Telo: red light daily

Post by Takafoomi » Fri Jan 21, 2011 7:15 pm

OK.. So I was recently contacted and asked for an update on my situation.. is it any better/worse? How did I resolve things? Did I? Well.. here's what I did.. this may/may not work for you. First, I do have to compliment Ooma tech support.. they documented my situation from the very first call.. and I think authentically cared about my situation - even if they couldn't fix my issues on their end. They methodically walked me through various steps.. But I think I fixed it myself..

I am a Time Warner cable customer.. with a basic RoadRunner package. I was using a standard issue RCA cable modem from TWC, and an ancient Linksys WRT54G v1.1 router. The router was up to date on Linksys' software.. So I, on my end methodically tested the speeds I was getting with speedtest.net and pingtest.net. Then I decided that first, my cable modem was old and crappy. Was I really getting as much speed as TWC was providing?

I bought a Motorola SurfBoard Xtreme SB6120. On sale at BestBuy for like $80, I also saw it on Amazon for $77. Anyway, I got it added/authorized by TWC within 2 days.. It runs like a champ, looks pretty. And I actually just 'feel' its running better than the POC RCA cable modem.. It uses all 4 channels that TWC provides and is DOCSIS 3 compliant. BUT - did I notice any difference with my Telo? Nope.

Next step in the process.. The router. I actually uploaded a new operating system to the WRT54G called 'Tomato'. It took a little dinking around.. but ultimately I really liked the software. It allowed me to do things to the router that the router never dreamed of including QoS. I prioritized the Telo's MAC address.. disabled the Telo's QoS (don't need it/doesnt do anything if your Telo is after the router anyway). I noticed a bit of difference in the Telo's voice quality. However, the Telo still would drop calls periodically.. and I would still get the red blinking circles of doom. Worse, my wife still complained about the box. I had to escalate my war to use VoIP. Tomato was/is great, but the hardware in the WRT54G was ancient.

So I decided to upgrade my router. I bought a Netgear N600 Model: WNDR3700 for $129, also on sale at BB. Installing this puppy was easy/brainless - perfect for me. It also has native QoS. I prioritized the Telo.. Double checked the setup.ooma.com to kill the static IP I had set up.. and placed calls with the Telo. You know what? It worked/works even better. Calls sound cleaner.. they seem to 'fade' a little less often (you know, where it sounds like a bad cell phone signal/no tower).. and the blinking red light isn't a game stopper. I noticed it a couple of times, but the Telo now seems to be able to recover from it without me cold booting the Telo. Whereas before the only way to get the Telo to revive after cursing at it, was to unplug it and plug it back in. More importantly, my wife complains just a bit less.

The only thing that's happened weirdly, just this morning in fact.. was that an inbound call early in the AM never made it to voicemail... it's almost like the Telo didn't get the right signal from TWC... and in turn the voicemail trigger wasn't fired off. Kinda annoying at 6 AM...

So to net it out, check your own network's hardware. VoIP in a modem>router>telo set-up needs steady bandwidth pure and simple. Will my red light ever totally go away? I don't know.. I think TWC is still screwing me a bit.. so I may end up paying the an extra $9 a month for more bandwidth.. I suspect that will be the nail in my problem's coffin. So I may not have a copper phone bill anymore, but I did need to spend about $200 on new hardware for my network and a perpetual $9 a month extra to TWC for some extra pipe. The ROI on the Telo is still there.. but it's longer to achieve my breakeven.

One last thought.. I am a geek, I work for a tech company, I am willing to go under the hood and to see what's going on. If Telo wants to grow more, they need to make the unit more self-sufficient and easier to configure.. And I dare say should provide recommendations on some minimum suggested network requirements, upload/download speeds.. and perhaps some sort of wizard to provide help when the wizard blinks it's SOS signal. Oh, and please please please add an LCD/LED screen to the Telo.. It'd be nice if it would tell me what's bothering it BEFORE I drag out my laptop and go crazy trying to solve a problem. In a bit of irony, if the Telo is your only phone line and you call Ooma for tech support and your Telo doesn't work - guess what - you are SOL.

I also own/use a Vonage box for my work line.. It lives in a modem>vonage>router config.. it never goes wrong. However, it doesnt have an answering machine like gizmo, so it can live in my basement and never be seen. If the Telo had a non answering machine box, that could just live in the basement tied directly to my modem, it may make the little black box easier to insert into a personal network, without worrying about bandwidth shooting through a modem.

I hope this saga has helped someone.. thanks for reading :)

Spiky
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Re: Telo: red light daily

Post by Spiky » Sat Jan 22, 2011 7:24 am

I also was contacted and thought I'd leave a note here so anyone can read it.

My saga was fairly brief, and I'm quite happy with the Telo since. I think my problem was either the firmware at the time or its installation may have been corrupted in my Telo, even right out of the box. As you can see from the early posts in this thread, ntoy reset my box and forced an update. Once that took properly, my problems cleared up. I even switched from Comcast 16Mb (using SB6120, excellent modem, highly recommended) to Qwest 40Mb with no problems, I had to reset the Telo after physically switching modems, that was it.

Of note though, a couple posts in this thread, and many other threads, have posted the advice to change the MAC setup to "built-in". I believe that is part of the problem. The Telo seems to need fairly perfect functionality in itself and every part of the network "before" it to keep working, or it tends to drop the phone function. The first few times I had the red light was before I set to Built-In, and then the last few were less frequent, and cleaned up with the firmware install.

I have set QoS to some large amount like 1Mb in the Telo, but with my broadband speed I may not even need it set at all. It doesn't seem to be affecting anything, so I've left it alone.

Also, my setup is the preferred: Modem>>Telo>>network

I actually have no other router right now, the Telo is acting as the router so the network functions at all, and it goes right to a switch to go to various computers and devices. And it seems to be doing just fine. (I may add a router to upgrade my network, but that is not related to Ooma) I easily download at over 30Mbps with my current setup, going through the Telo. For anybody running their router before the Telo, esp if you are above 10Mb broadband, you should consider putting it where they recommend and change up the settings to match. If the speed worries you that the Telo might be a bottleneck, note that the Telo has 10/100Mb ethernet built in, just like so many devices today. I am running a 100Mb network, that is faster than almost any broadband connection in the USA. So you can run plenty through a Telo.

So recap:
  • Set MAC to Built-In (Ooma really ought to make this the default)
  • Put Telo right after the modem
  • Set QoS in Telo
  • Make sure your network is really working
  • Get support to push firmware update

Kurtois
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Re: Telo: red light daily

Post by Kurtois » Fri Feb 11, 2011 9:55 am

Murphy/Thunderbird - First, thank you for your suggestions.

That said....

Issue in the end turned out to be a hardware issue with the cable modem (Motorola SurfBoard SB5100 series) that would fail just briefly; enough that the connection was dropped. This seemed to be an unrecoverable situation 99% of the time for the Ooma Telo.

For reference, I was running this configuration while troubleshooting:

Cable Modem -> Ooma Telo

A replacement modem made it all better. Now, I plan to connect a home router to the Ooma (HOME Internet Port) and hopefully all will go well.

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