I've tried many gadgets that send my home phone calls over the Internet, but only one has really done a good job of it: the Ooma. Although it has been around for a couple of years, it recently trotted out an upgrade that promises even better call quality, plus some other bells and whistles.
That intrigued me enough to take a look at the latest model. My verdict: For most home users, Ooma may not have gotten much better, but it's still the best one I know of.
When the first Ooma device, the Hub, came out in 2007, its core proposition was this: Pay $250 for a box that's the size of an answering machine, hook it up to your broadband line and home phone, and get unlimited domestic calls for free -- for life.
That was a good deal, especially since the Ooma had stellar audio quality and reliability, something the other Internet phone services lacked. Being a techno-optimist, I had dragged home a succession of other phone devices over the years, only to have them all nixed by my wife, who uses the home line more than I do. "Horrible" was her judgment on Internet telephony.
The Hub passed the wife test, and I have been using it at home for more than a year, feeling confident enough to ditch my traditional phone line. There were two service outages early on, but since then, it's worked great, and it's already paid for itself.
Late last year, Ooma launched a new model, the Telo, which is the basis for all the new features. However, it also started to look as if Ooma's original offer was too good -- at least for the company. The service is no longer free for life: Buy a new Telo, and you'll have to pay $11.95 per...
Posted: 2010-06-04 10:28:13
