ooma

Last fall Chris did a communications make-over for our house. Christopher Never-pay-retail Calvert lived up to his name and made some changes to our internet, phone and TV service plans/providers that not only save us more than $70 per month, but also give us better service (faster internet, more HD channels, better calling features, etc).

Switching our home phone service to ooma has made the biggest difference, and since many of you have asked me about it, I thought I'd post some details here.

• You buy an ooma system that works with your existing phones (think we paid about $200 and I just noticed that you can buy the systems at Costco)
  
• You connect the system to your cable/DSL modem and select your plan
• The basic plan is FREE and includes many great features -- free calls to anywhere in the US, caller-ID, call-waiting, voicemail (including getting your voicemail via email)
  
• You can port your current phone number for a one-time charge of $40 (we did this and it took about two weeks for the port to go through)
• The premier plan is $13 per month or $100 per year and gives you things like a "second line," the ability to send a call to voicemail, forwarding capability to your cell phone or any other phone (we signed up for a year of this and they waived the $40 charge for porting our phone number)

What I love about this service (besides saving money):

• We haven't sacrificed voice quality at all (this was a big concern for me)
• Getting voicemails emailed to me (I can even listen to them on my iPhone)
• The fact that the phone rings elsewhere in the house when I'm talking on it and call-waiting comes on (before only the person on the phone knew when call-waiting came on)
• The ability to instantly send a caller to voicemail (either after you talk with them or instead of answering and listening to the phone continue ringing)
  
• There are no taxes or fees on top of our $99 per year premier service plan