Obi box requirements to sign up wth Phonepower Obitlite offering?

[walenta]

I have an Obi100 with Obitalk service via phonepower - works great
when I did set up a year ago, I remember it asking me how "old" Obibox was... something like ...I would be eligible only if OBibox was purchased after May2014 or so... don't remember the details and did not pay attention as I had just purchased new Obi and it was Sep2014..

I have another landline in different house I like to do the same thing - get Obi100 and Obilite through phonepower..... I have seen used Obi100 on ebay and thinking maybe I can save another 20$ by buying used... but remembering that "age or purchase" requirement from above...and because I would not know how old any used Obi would be... does anyone know what this limitation was about... I called phonepower and they don't seem to know... so I am thinking it may come from Obi.. ...  anybody as an idea?

thanks

[SteveInWA]

I would strongly advise against purchasing any used OBi ATAs.  There are enough of them that have experienced hardware failures, that it's possible somebody is unloading a dead one.  The cost of a new one will get you a year of warranty and customer support -- worth it.

[walenta]

thanks Steve, I did not know that the HW can be shaky... assumed its simple electronics... but thanks for advice.. agree if OBI HW breaks a lot ..then new is better... how frequent are HW failures?
what should I expect how long my unit makes it?

[SteveInWA]

The issue is that a relative few out of the tens of thousands of units sold, will have been damaged by a lightning strike or power issue, or otherwise just failed somehow, no different than other consumer electronics products.   You wouldn't know that the unit is defective until you tried to configure it. 

So, just my personal opinion, but the hassle factor of saving a small amount of money would be more than buying a new, warranted unit.