Ooma - The Phone Service No One Has Heard Of

Most people these days are familiar with the various options for phone services. Most younger people I know just use their cell phone as their primary phone and save the cost of paying for a land line. I considered this option but the quality of phone calls isn't always great and sometimes I think I would be running over my minutes for the month so I would have to bump up my plan to be sure that didn't happen. So, I began looking at other options to get rid of our $40 plus a month bill with the local phone company.

We first tried Comcast phone service, which is basically VOIP (voice over internet protocol). It is similar to Vonage and other services offered by cable companies. With a cable bundle, we were paying around $40 per month for everything included (long distance, phone add-ons, etc.) It worked great but we were still paying that $40 per month. So, when I heard about this other option called "Ooma", I was intrigued. It is another VOIP service so you do have to have internet through with either DSL or cable. Since I refuse to give up the speed of my cable internet, we were already paying for that service.

The main difference between Ooma and the other VOIP phone services is that you don't pay a bill! Yes, that is right. Once you purchase the hardware, you never pay a phone bill again. The cost of the equipment runs around $200, but I figured with the $40 per month we would be saving, it would pay for itself in less than 6 months. So, what is the catch you ask? Actually there is none that I have found. If you want to keep your same phone number you have now, you pay an extra $35 one time fee. And, free long distance is only for US phone numbers but that was not a problem for us since we don't call outside the US. You can purchase time for outside of US calling through Ooma.

We have now had our Ooma phone line for almost a year and have been very happy with it. It works as well as any other VOIP service we tried. You will lose phone service when the power goes out, but that is what cell phones are for, right? Other than that, we haven't found any down side to our new "free" phone service.

Now, I don't get any kick backs from Ooma for recommending them (however, they did send me a 'refer a friend' bonus if I find someone who is interested in the service that would give both of us a discount - if you are interested that is) but I am just happy to pass on a way to save a little money and share a great deal I have found. You can go to the Ooma website and read more and I believe Costco does sell their products, along with Best Buy in our area. So, if you want to save a little cash, check them out. Now you can say you have heard of "Ooma".