Let’s just come right out and say it… Having a home phone line is starting to become a thing of the past. Personally, I like having a home phone. It gives us access to the kids when we get a sitter, and it’s still a habit for us to call our home line. But… when the minimum charge I can get is 40 bucks a month it feels a little blood-sucking-ish.

What you want is a home phone set up that’s cheap, simple, and I can use the phone system on my smartphone (and everyone else in my family with a smart-device) so I don’t need to have multiple long distance plans. Sound like something you want? Let me introduce you to Ooma.

What is Ooma?

Oom a is a VOIP service (which is fancy-pants words for using internet instead of standard phone line). According to it’s site it has been ranked #1 in service for the last 5 years. What you get when you purchase it is a VOIP box that connects directly to your internet and your phone.

Set up took all of 60 seconds. It was simple. They also have a number porting service if you are interested in carrying over your phone number. You can find out more here.

Who is Ooma for?

Ooma is for anyone who is looking to save money on their home phone. You buy the box, and it’s sets up in seconds.  If you are looking for a home phone option, or if you are wanting a lower long-distance phone plan for both your home phone and your smartphone.T

Pros of Ooma

Cost savings. Once you buy the box, you just have to pay for the regulatory fees in your state or province.  Ooma has a cost saving calculator that will show you how much you can save every month.

 

We went from $40 a month to $4 a month after the regulatory fees.

This translates to over $360 worth of savings every year. If you want to check out your savings, they have a wicked savings calculator (yes, calculators can be wicked), which you can access here.

Free unlimited country-wide calling.

This is a big one for me. I can call anywhere in the country for free. Better yet, when I am out of the house, I can use the Ooma app to make calls for free in the country. This is super handy when you are out your normal area and don’t want to get hit with roaming fees.

How does it sound?

The sound quality is crystal clear for us. As long as you have a high speed internet connection, (3 mbps or more, which is pretty common nowadays) you should have crystal clear sounds quality. Our internet is considered slower than most and we still have perfect quality sound, without any breaks or static.

What are the cons

The only con that I have found with Ooma is quality of sound depends on your internet connection. When we were getting less than 2 MBPS at first. We found Ooma was cutting out, however we never had a dropped call.

When we upgraded we were getting 4 MBPS and the sound is crystal clear. The same goes when you’re using the App on 3G it’s not the greatest, but with 4G-LTE it’s great.

With a lot of packages getting 8 MBPS or more your sounds should be crystal clear. They also have a premier pricing which will give you a lot of extra add-ons and accessibility it wasn’t necessary for us, but I have friends that use it and swear buy it, You get a free 1 month trial of it when you join and t

Best Part About Ooma

Its the smartphone/tablet app.   The Ooma app works on your smartphone and tablet. This way you can use your data plan to make all the calls you want and it doesn’t affect your minutes. If your cell phone plan has unlimited data, or even if it doesn’t you can call anywhere you want.

Ooma even has long distance plan that you can use. Simply start with a deposit of $10 and you can call anywhere in the world. Before you are connected they tell you how many minutes you have left.

Both Uk and China are $0.03 a minute. To check out their long distance rates check here.