Co-existing with a landline while number gets ported

Need extra help installing your Ooma Hub or Telo system? Let us know.
Post Reply
Skippy
Posts:5
Joined:Sat May 16, 2009 6:25 pm
Co-existing with a landline while number gets ported

Post by Skippy » Sat May 16, 2009 6:57 pm

I just installed and activated our Ooma this morning and have a temporary number assigned while my existing number gets ported. So for now (until my phone number gets ported) I have both my existing land-line and the Ooma with the temporary number.

The problem is that I want to use the Ooma but all my calls come in on the existing line. So if I plug my phone into the existing line I get my calls but the Ooma doesn't get used. And if I plug the phone into the Ooma then I miss all of the calls that come in on my existing number over the land-line.

What I want to do is to plug my land-line into the Ooma (as I've done) and have the Ooma ring the phone when a call comes in over my existing land-line. This way I could use the Ooma (and temp number) for outgoing calls but I won't miss any calls on my existing line.

Can this be done? I've searched the forums and haven't been able to find anything but it doesn't seem like it would be all that complicated.

Thanks!

WayneDsr
Posts:3790
Joined:Wed Feb 04, 2009 6:28 pm
Location:Northern Indiana

Re: Co-existing with a landline while number gets ported

Post by WayneDsr » Sat May 16, 2009 7:58 pm

I'm going to assume that you have ooma setup WITHOUT a landline.

If that's the case the best thing you can do is put call forwarding on your land line and have it forward all calls to your ooma number until the port.

If you are using a phone on the ooma hub, as you should and do not have the PHONE port connected to your wall jack, you can receive calls on ooma and landline. Just plug a phone into a wall jack and it should receive all your landline calls. Ooma calls will come through the phone connected to the ooma hub.

And... Welcome to the ooma forums!

Wayne

User avatar
bw1
Posts:1781
Joined:Wed Mar 18, 2009 9:06 am
Location:MI

Re: Co-existing with a landline while number gets ported

Post by bw1 » Sun May 17, 2009 3:50 am

You can also call customer service (CS) and ask to have them change your ooma configuration to be setup with a landline. Then you would connect the wall port on the ooma hub to the wall jack in your house. Explain to CS that you want this configuration temporarily while your number gets ported and you don't want any provisioning of your landline.

This will result in all local, toll free and 911 calls from the phone connected to the ooma hub's phone port to go through the landline and all toll and long distance calls to use ooma.

There are a couple of issues with this setup. First, you have to have the landline connected to the ooma hub or else it will stop working and when the landline is disconnected as part of the port, CS will have to change your ooma configuration to be setup without a landline.
The other issue is that calls coming into your landline will not get the benefits like ooma calls, such as blocking or multi-ring. And if you don't have caller id on your landline, you still won't have it on calls from your landline that go through your ooma hub.

Skippy
Posts:5
Joined:Sat May 16, 2009 6:25 pm

Re: Co-existing with a landline while number gets ported

Post by Skippy » Sun May 17, 2009 5:42 am

WayneDsr wrote:I'm going to assume that you have ooma setup WITHOUT a landline.

If that's the case the best thing you can do is put call forwarding on your land line and have it forward all calls to your ooma number until the port.

If you are using a phone on the ooma hub, as you should and do not have the PHONE port connected to your wall jack, you can receive calls on ooma and landline. Just plug a phone into a wall jack and it should receive all your landline calls. Ooma calls will come through the phone connected to the ooma hub.

And... Welcome to the ooma forums!

Wayne
Hi Wayne,

Thanks for the info. The first/obvious thing that I tried was to setup call forwarding on my land-line to go to my temp Ooma number. What an adventure that was. Here's a synopsis.

I've never used call forwarding on the land-line so I didn't know if I had it or not on my phone plan. According to what I read when I setup call forwarding the number I'm forwarding to will ring (Ooma #) and I need to answer it. So my wireless handset is plugged into Ooma and the phone down in the basement is still on the landline.

The web says #42 or 42* sets up call forwarding. Nope. Another site says 71# or 71*. Run downstairs... try again... Nope.

So I search Verizon's knowledge base and there's a hundreds of hits but most (nearly all) are for cell-phone customers. It's hard finding land-line info these days.

I look at their 'residential plans' and find mine... it looks like I have call-forwarding. I call Verizon... go through dozens of menus and finally get a human. She tells me I have call forwarding and that it's #71.

I hang up, run to the basement (for the Nth time) and try #71. Nope - still doesn't work. Call Verizon back, go through the same maze of menus, listen to how my call is important to them and finally get a human. This time she tells me I don't have call forwarding. But for $5/month I can get it.

Fine.. I'll take it. So I ask if it'll work immediately if I sign up. She tells me it can take up to 3 weeks to setup. (Shouldn't this simply be a mouse-click or two on the computer? Why the need to "setup" anything.)

At this point I've had it. After this 3-ring circus I'm looking forward to dumping Verizon more than ever.

Skippy
Posts:5
Joined:Sat May 16, 2009 6:25 pm

Re: Co-existing with a landline while number gets ported

Post by Skippy » Sun May 17, 2009 5:55 am

bw1 wrote:You can also call customer service (CS) and ask to have them change your ooma configuration to be setup with a landline. Then you would connect the wall port on the ooma hub to the wall jack in your house. Explain to CS that you want this configuration temporarily while your number gets ported and you don't want any provisioning of your landline.

This will result in all local, toll free and 911 calls from the phone connected to the ooma hub's phone port to go through the landline and all toll and long distance calls to use ooma.

There are a couple of issues with this setup. First, you have to have the landline connected to the ooma hub or else it will stop working and when the landline is disconnected as part of the port, CS will have to change your ooma configuration to be setup without a landline.
The other issue is that calls coming into your landline will not get the benefits like ooma calls, such as blocking or multi-ring. And if you don't have caller id on your landline, you still won't have it on calls from your landline that go through your ooma hub.
Hi BW,

The 'couple of issues' are manageable and I can certainly live with them for the month or so until my number is ported. The biggest hassle seems like calling CS and switching back after the port.

The primary reason I started investigating this (and discovered Ooma) was because the call quality of my landline is terrible. It's not the phone either. I made a couple of calls with the Ooma line and the sound quality was superb compared to what I get through the landline. When we moved to the development we talked to the neighbors about this and their phone quality is also lousy. Something about our neighborhood being far from the phone company equipment.

So if all local and toll-free calls are going to go through the landline then I'm not getting much benefit. I may look into call-forwarding (again) or just bite the bullet and wait out until the port is complete.

All that I really want to do is to plug in the existing line into the Ooma hub (like I already did) and have the Ooma answer incoming calls on that line.

User avatar
jmassimilla
Posts:525
Joined:Sat Feb 07, 2009 4:38 am
Location:Burlington County, South Jersey

Re: Co-existing with a landline while number gets ported

Post by jmassimilla » Sun May 17, 2009 6:21 am

First off, it should only take, at most, 48 hours for a feature to be activated. I have a Verizon landline with call forwarding and it is activated by dialing *72. You get a stutter dial tone for a second and then a normal dial tone. At this point, you dial the number that you want to forward to and allow it to connect for @ 6 seconds. The forwarding is then activated. To deactivate, you dial *73. If you dial *72 and get a fast busy signal, you do not have call forwarding on your line. I use my landline for emergencies only and have it forwarded to my ooma number all the time. I've found over the years in dealing with Verizon that their CS reps are not very knowledgable and you can talk to 10 different people and get 10 different answers. They are not very pleasant to deal with for the most part. If you don't already have call forwarding set up on the line, the $5 figure sounds about right. I think I pay about that per month. Good luck with everything and as Wayne said, welcome to ooma. I think that you'll find the experience here rewarding!
Customer since Feb 2009
2 Hub/Scout
1 Telo/Handset
Lifetime Premier Subscriber

Post Reply