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Why switch from Ooma?

Started by giqcass, January 04, 2015, 08:06:16 PM

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giqcass

I saw the Ooma discussion and was curious why people are switching away.  I never used Ooma personally but for me I find it limited(based on what I know).  I don't like being locked down to a device or service. I love to tinker and the Obi devices makes it very easy to do so.  For those that already spent the $$$ on Ooma hardware what is your motivation to leave the service? 
Long live our new ObiLords!

ColoradoVOIP

#1
Originally I switched TO Ooma when OBI announced that GV was going away.

Overall I was quite happy with Ooma, but recently I started noticing call quality issues. I'd have calls go silent for several seconds and also found myself talking over people a lot due to latency. I had the service for over a year so its possible that my Ooma device was starting to act up. I thought about trying a replacement but couldn't justify the cost.

I did a little research on call latency and spent WAY to much time calling both an echo test number and my cell phone to time call latency and learned that I had (on average) ~900ms of latency with Ooma.

So, I pulled my old OBI out of a box, dusted it off and set it up with Google Voice, VOIP.MS, Anveo and Circlenet and did the same latency tests. With the providers listed above, my average latency is between 350ms-500ms - so significantly better than Ooma (For me, GoogleVoice and Circlenet do the best followed by Anveo and Voip.ms)

Better latency coupled with the extra bells and whistles that are offered and I don't see myself going back to Ooma anytime soon.

lrosenman

I switched for price and Quality of the HD2 handset issues.  I had 4 HD2's and when the number rang, the one closest one to my wife would NOT ring.

So for wife satisfaction, we moved :)

and the cost is lower.

TonyTib

I was with Ooma, using an Ooma hub, before switching to an Obi 202.  I didn't have any problems, but I wanted more.

Ooma is a decent choice if you want simplicity (it's easier to setup than an Obi), and can deal with the limits of the basic service or are willing to pay for the Premier service.  However, I was frustrated because anytime I wanted to tweak almost anything to improve the voice quality, I had to call Ooma.

The Obi 202 is still pretty easy to setup (I don't do the automated setups), with a lot of options if needed.  I do use both lines, and I like having the option of using GV plus almost any ITSP (currently, GV + Anveo + Vestalink, although I might tweak my setup in the near future).  Oh, and these forums are pretty awesome.

In summary, the Obi 202 gives me more features and flexibility than an Ooma at less cost, at the cost of a more complicated (but still fairly easy) setup.

Jackson

Ooma also charges monthly taxes.

CMGeorge

Quote from: giqcass on January 04, 2015, 08:06:16 PM
I saw the Ooma discussion and was curious why people are switching away.  I never used Ooma personally but for me I find it limited(based on what I know).  I don't like being locked down to a device or service. I love to tinker and the Obi devices makes it very easy to do so.  For those that already spent the $$$ on Ooma hardware what is your motivation to leave the service? 
For me, it was cost. Ooma worked great, but I was spending ~$170/year between the cost of the Premier plan and the monthly taxes. I figure that by switching to Voip.ms, I can save, have all the features I had under Ooma Premier, and get more flexibility to play around with some features I didn't have before.