Just switched to PhonePower, pretty easy to do, and it works

[erichard2]

Not affiliated with them or Obi, but am a procrastinator, so I waited till the last days of course. I just followed the links on Obi's site to Phonepower signup (you need to be signed into Obihai to make the sign up procedure for Phonepower available [or pull down menus don't work]). From there it guides you pretty effortlessly. Once done there, you get confirmation emails. I got a new number at Phonepower and then went to Google voice's page under settings and clicked add a new phone, which was the new Phonepower number. Then Google voice quickly confirms the connection by calling you on it. That is the call forward process from Google Voice. That's it. Took less than 20 minutes.

And unlike some other posts, you don't have to reset the Obi device. You just use the computer to set it up and don't even have to touch the Obi 202.

I used SP2 on the Obi 202 for the new number, leaving Googlevoice on SP1 for time period I was signing up, and it all works great. Sound quality is good and it rings instantly (no delays like some were experiencing elsewhere.) This is a half day experience review for what it's worth, but it's getting down to the wire, so I thought I'd put it out there.

So for last minute people like myself, too bad we have to pay now, but given that, Obi made the transition pretty easy and not too expensive.

[ScotObi]

I wanted to share my positive experience with Phone Power as well.  In short, I had some problems initially (all likely self-inflicted) but once those were resolved it's been smooth sailing so far.  Call quality has been very good and I've not experienced any dropped calls (unlike Google Voice in both cases).

I have an Obi110 and mostly use it for conference calls when working from home so as not to run up my cell phone bill (currently only about $22/mo with Ting).  Our web conferencing system has a "callback" feature that initiates the calls, which is great as they count as incoming calls from a Phone Power perspective and are "unlimited" in their service plans.  Speaking of which, I signed up for the $34.99/year special offer using the link from obitalk.com.  The account creation and provisioning process was very smooth and user friendly.  However, after that was done I encountered two problems: 

1.) I could not receive multiple incoming calls without having to reboot the Obi110.

2.) Incoming conference calls would drop consistently after 16 minutes (give or take a few seconds).

My setup was as follows:  The Obi110 was connected to a WRT54GL wireless router (running DD-WRT) downstream from my Dlink wired-only router which was connected to the internet.  For some reason the Obi110 had no problem using Google Voice with this setup, but it did with Phone Power. 

Ultimately the fix consisted of simply bypassing the WRT54GL wireless router and connecting the Obi110 directly into my Dlink wired router.  It was unclear whether it was the WRT54GL itself, or it being downstream from the Dlink router that Phone Power didn't like, but since the change I haven't had either of the above two problems.  I figured I'd mention this anyway in the hope that it will help someone else in their troubleshooting.

We'll see if Phone Power goes back on it's "unlimited" promise in the long run as I tend to take a lot of incoming conference calls on those days where I work from home, but so far, so good.

[PercyPriest]

Signed up for phonepower unlimited yesterday.  It's great.  Sending & receiving faxes for the first time since having Bellsouth regular phone service.  Everything is as good as google voice but better on many things.

[Brandito]

Also been using phonepower unlimited the last few weeks. Works just as good as gv did for me. I wanted to be able to use my actual fax machine for faxing and phone power offered that. Their unlimited was a much better deal than what anveo was offering. More features for less money.

[MVCL]

I can share some experience: My Obi 110 is behind an Asus home router, and that is behind the residential gateway from ATT Uverse(Internet only). The installation for PP (PhonePower) went fairly well - I needed some live PP tech support to get it rebooted an extra time. So far so good. Then I went to GV and made a full-time forward of my number there over to the new number at PP. So I get all the goodies from both, including now having a fax-receive to email capability.

One odd thing: 2 out of 3 times when I dial out, the call goes nowhere-- just dead silence. If I try a couple more times it eventually gets a connection. I wonder, is PP is over capacity?