Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

On 10/27/2015 07:25 PM, Eagle wrote:

Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

I already had cable Internet service and added an Obihai OB202 VOIP box
(maybe $50 or so on sale) and have phone service from PhonePower
(approx. $60 for a year with a discount coupon, I think).

Free local and lnog-distance within the US. Not sure about Canada. No
complaints.

Google Voice now works with those Obihai boxes and is free.

Perce

On 10/27/2015 07:25 PM, Eagle wrote:
Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

I'm rather fond of ooma.com as are millions of other consumer reports
subscribers.

On Tue, 27 Oct 2015 16:25:35 -0700, Eagle no@not now.ever wrote:

Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

After decaded and decades of paying the old phone company
$75-100/month, I finally bit the bullet and purchased a Magic Jack
($35 and walmart), connected it to my internal network and plugged in
my cordless phone base and have had trouble free voice now for over a
year. Call for the entire US and CA are FREE and each additional year
is only $35 which works out to $3/month. Yep, just like the phone
company.

Had I known it was this good I would have switched years ago.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

Until a few months ago I was a longtime user of Localphone VoIP. All
incalls are free and so are 800 number outcalls. Other outcalls are
1¢/minute within the US. However, it also costs $1.00/month for an
incall telephone number.

Getting a Google Voice number to use with Hangouts is totally free for
US, Canada and Mexico. Installs on most smartphones and computers.

On Tuesday, October 27, 2015 at 7:29:39 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Tue, 27 Oct 2015 16:25:35 -0700, Eagle no@not now.ever wrote:

Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

After decaded and decades of paying the old phone company
$75-100/month, I finally bit the bullet and purchased a Magic Jack
($35 and walmart), connected it to my internal network and plugged in
my cordless phone base and have had trouble free voice now for over a
year. Call for the entire US and CA are FREE and each additional year
is only $35 which works out to $3/month. Yep, just like the phone
company.

Had I known it was this good I would have switched years ago.
---

I have two of them. One of the originals that must be plugged into a USB port of an operating computer connected to The Internet in order to work and I have a newer version that will also work off a USB port but has an Ethernet port too that allows it to be hooked directly to a router so it functions without a computer. Of course the newer model comes with a power supply that plugs into the 120 vac power then into the USB port to power it. I have them hooked to a two line desk phone at my computer table. If I was back home I'd be using them. ^_^

[8~{} Uncle Magic Monster

On Tuesday, October 27, 2015 at 8:07:52 PM UTC-4, Harry Butz wrote:
On 10/27/2015 07:25 PM, Eagle wrote:
Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

I'm rather fond of ooma.com as are millions of other consumer reports
subscribers.

+1

I tried MajicJack and Nettalk and wouldn't touch either with a 10 ft
poll. Fortunately MJ I was able to return to RadioShack. Nettalk
I had for a year. Serious problems with both in terms of support.
Neither have a voice phone support number, relying on emails and/or
chat windows. I found MJ support via chat available, but totally
incompetent. Nettalk, chat line is all backed up, they push you off
to open a trouble ticket online, then they never respond to it. Check out
Amazon for ratings there by customers and you'll see NT really, really
sucks. Among the problems with NT, while for a month or two it was
fine, it then started going into red light mode at least once a week.
Until I cycled the power, it was out of service.

So, 6 months ago I switched to Ooma. Very satisfied. It's been
reliable and they have real phone support that answers when you call.
I had no trouble getting a real person on the line and the person
sounded like they were US based. With NT ad MJ, IDK where they were,
but the chat was in broken English. Ooma service is "free", but you
have to pay for the device up front and monthly taxes and fees. The
taxes/fees run me $3.75 a month. The box they were selling for $120,
but they have sales where it's been $100, probably will again for the
holiday season. You can also buy new or used ones on Ebay. The service
includes unlimited US/Canada, unlimited Ooma to Ooma anywhere. They
have international calling by the minute. And they have a smartphone
app that lets you make or receive calls from your home # on your
smartphone via wifi. I found the smartphone app voice quality and
reliability to be far superior to the similar apps that MJ and NT
offer. If you make a lot of calls, beware the other
players. All of them claim to have "unlimited" residential usage,
but they all really cap you at some number of monthly minutes and
don't tell you about that except in fine print in the contract. With
Ooma it's 5000 mins, something I'd never hit. I did manage to hit
the NT limit of 1500 mins one month and then they just cut you off
with no warning, service goes dead. When I signed up for a year, the
limit was 3000 mins and they changed it a few months later, with no
notice. Also, while the NT/MJ types offer
discounts if you sign up for 3 yrs or whatever of service, I'd never
do that or at least not until you're really sure it works for you
after at least a year.
Ooma also offers a premier service, for $10 a month that includes
a lot of features like conferencing, call forwarding, etc, if any of
that is something you need.

Another issue is porting numbers. All of the above ones charge $20
to $40 to port your old number in if you want to. Otherwise you
can pick a new number, in some cases you can get a very local one,
in others it may be another town in the state. How much that matters,
depends on you. Also, I think MJ was playing a game where they
charge you to port your number out if you want to leave and take it.
From what I saw, it's questionable if that is even legal.

But I would look at Amazon at reviews on whatever you are considering.
Wish I had thought of that before I started.

On Wednesday, October 28, 2015 at 6:58:04 AM UTC-5, trader_4 wrote:
On Tuesday, October 27, 2015 at 8:07:52 PM UTC-4, Harry Butz wrote:
On 10/27/2015 07:25 PM, Eagle wrote:
Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

I'm rather fond of ooma.com as are millions of other consumer reports
subscribers.

+1

I tried MajicJack and Nettalk and wouldn't touch either with a 10 ft
poll. Fortunately MJ I was able to return to RadioShack. Nettalk
I had for a year. Serious problems with both in terms of support.
Neither have a voice phone support number, relying on emails and/or
chat windows. I found MJ support via chat available, but totally
incompetent. Nettalk, chat line is all backed up, they push you off
to open a trouble ticket online, then they never respond to it. Check out
Amazon for ratings there by customers and you'll see NT really, really
sucks. Among the problems with NT, while for a month or two it was
fine, it then started going into red light mode at least once a week.
Until I cycled the power, it was out of service.

So, 6 months ago I switched to Ooma. Very satisfied. It's been
reliable and they have real phone support that answers when you call.
I had no trouble getting a real person on the line and the person
sounded like they were US based. With NT ad MJ, IDK where they were,
but the chat was in broken English. Ooma service is "free", but you
have to pay for the device up front and monthly taxes and fees. The
taxes/fees run me $3.75 a month. The box they were selling for $120,
but they have sales where it's been $100, probably will again for the
holiday season. You can also buy new or used ones on Ebay. The service
includes unlimited US/Canada, unlimited Ooma to Ooma anywhere. They
have international calling by the minute. And they have a smartphone
app that lets you make or receive calls from your home # on your
smartphone via wifi. I found the smartphone app voice quality and
reliability to be far superior to the similar apps that MJ and NT
offer. If you make a lot of calls, beware the other
players. All of them claim to have "unlimited" residential usage,
but they all really cap you at some number of monthly minutes and
don't tell you about that except in fine print in the contract. With
Ooma it's 5000 mins, something I'd never hit. I did manage to hit
the NT limit of 1500 mins one month and then they just cut you off
with no warning, service goes dead. When I signed up for a year, the
limit was 3000 mins and they changed it a few months later, with no
notice. Also, while the NT/MJ types offer
discounts if you sign up for 3 yrs or whatever of service, I'd never
do that or at least not until you're really sure it works for you
after at least a year.
Ooma also offers a premier service, for $10 a month that includes
a lot of features like conferencing, call forwarding, etc, if any of
that is something you need.

Another issue is porting numbers. All of the above ones charge $20
to $40 to port your old number in if you want to. Otherwise you
can pick a new number, in some cases you can get a very local one,
in others it may be another town in the state. How much that matters,
depends on you. Also, I think MJ was playing a game where they
charge you to port your number out if you want to leave and take it.
From what I saw, it's questionable if that is even legal.

But I would look at Amazon at reviews on whatever you are considering.
Wish I had thought of that before I started.

I would never recommend trying to use magicJack to replace a landline especially if it's one you've had for years. I've had good luck with what I use them for and I get voicemail via my Email which works great since I'm away from home. One good use for a magicJack is for use as a private phone number that can be used for temporary purposes. I'd give my magicJack number to banks, insurance companies, hospitals or anyone I thought would share or give my number out to telepests. When I ask for information for something online that requires registration with a working phone number, the site gets a magicJack number. I got a voicemail via my Email from one of my magicJack numbers that was from a site that I requested information from 6 months ago.. To start with, I was getting 15 to 20 calls a day along with Emails sent to one of my alternate Email addresses that I use for potential pests and the damn calls and Emails went on for months because the site was sharing my information with other companies. I got the information I wanted without being pestered. I had an Affirmative Action Moron at a clinic give my information to a bill collection agency when I refused to pay for services I did not receive. The threatening voicemails to my magicJack number were numerous and very entertaining. It took a couple of years for the calls from those idiots to taper off until they finally gave up. A magicJack has it's uses with the advantage of it working from a laptop anywhere there is a WiFi connection. ^_^

[8~{} Uncle Jack Monster

Eagle expressed precisely :
Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local calls
free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

Thanks to everyone for their view on voip! I will most likely go with
ooma,

Eagle

On 10/28/2015 11:21 AM, Eagle wrote:
Eagle expressed precisely :
Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

Thanks to everyone for their view on voip! I will most likely go with ooma,

Eagle

Sounds like a good deal.

Wonder how you get your land line number switched to ooma?

I remember it was somewhat of a PITA to switch a land line from Verizon
to Comcast VoIP.

I kept a 2nd land line for business use but it is connected to a FIOS
box in the house. Verizon had replaced our deteriorating copper with
FIOS a few years ago. They still retain pricing and charge for extra
services like caller ID. Stuff you get for free on Comcast.

After serious thinking Frank wrote :
On 10/28/2015 11:21 AM, Eagle wrote:
Eagle expressed precisely :
Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

Thanks to everyone for their view on voip! I will most likely go with ooma,

Eagle

Sounds like a good deal.

Wonder how you get your land line number switched to ooma?

I remember it was somewhat of a PITA to switch a land line from Verizon to
Comcast VoIP.

I kept a 2nd land line for business use but it is connected to a FIOS box in
the house. Verizon had replaced our deteriorating copper with FIOS a few
years ago. They still retain pricing and charge for extra services like
caller ID. Stuff you get for free on Comcast.

I use verizon now, and am not happy about the cost. Internet, TV and
phone costs $220.00 per month, and That is just too much. Fiber optic
interenet access is good, but is it worth the expense?

On 10/27/2015 4:48 PM, Percival P. Cassidy wrote:
On 10/27/2015 07:25 PM, Eagle wrote:

Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

I already had cable Internet service and added an Obihai OB202 VOIP box
(maybe $50 or so on sale) and have phone service from PhonePower
(approx. $60 for a year with a discount coupon, I think).

Free local and lnog-distance within the US. Not sure about Canada. No
complaints.

Google Voice now works with those Obihai boxes and is free.

Perce


I use an Obihai 202 with RingTo. There is no cost for RingTo but they
require you to sign up for E911 service with a separate provider and
that costs $12 per year. So essentially I am paying $1 per month.

I looked into Ooma but it was a lot more expensive, even for the basic
service, than RingTo and Obihai. The appeal of Ooma is that one company
is providing both the service and the hardware, but the Obihai was not
that difficult to set up with RingTo.

The Obihai also works with Google Voice and there is no requirement for
E911 service, though it can be added separately.

RingTo does not charge a fee to port your number.

One annoyance, or it could be a benefit, is that the phone will often
ring once or twice before RingTo catches a robo-call or junk call. There
was also a time when tones were not going through to systems with "enter
your PIN" but now it works.

On 10/28/2015 02:46 PM, Frank wrote:

Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

Thanks to everyone for their view on voip! I will most likely go with
ooma,

Sounds like a good deal.

Wonder how you get your land line number switched to ooma?

I remember it was somewhat of a PITA to switch a land line from Verizon
to Comcast VoIP.

I kept a 2nd land line for business use but it is connected to a FIOS
box in the house. Verizon had replaced our deteriorating copper with
FIOS a few years ago. They still retain pricing and charge for extra
services like caller ID. Stuff you get for free on Comcast.

Our first experience with VOIP was when we ported our AT&T landline
number to T-Mobile's no-longer-offered T-Mobile@Home $10/mo. add-on to
our cell-phone plan. That seemed to work fine, but we were unable to
keep it when we switched from a prepaid cell-phone plan to month-by-month.

We then ported that number to Google Voice (with the Obihai VOIP box).
This was possible because our number now counted as a cellular number; I
don't know about now, but then only cellular numbers could be ported to GV.

Then for a period of several months GV became unusable with the Obihai
boxes, and it was at that time we got the PhonePower service. We still
have the GV number as a "public" one that forwards to the PhonePower
number, which we give out to very few people; outgoing calls show up as
the GV number too. Everything works fine.

Perce

On Wed, 28 Oct 2015 15:47:20 -0400, "Percival P. Cassidy"
wrote:

On 10/28/2015 02:46 PM, Frank wrote:

Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

Thanks to everyone for their view on voip! I will most likely go with
ooma,

Sounds like a good deal.

Wonder how you get your land line number switched to ooma?

I remember it was somewhat of a PITA to switch a land line from Verizon
to Comcast VoIP.

I kept a 2nd land line for business use but it is connected to a FIOS
box in the house. Verizon had replaced our deteriorating copper with
FIOS a few years ago. They still retain pricing and charge for extra
services like caller ID. Stuff you get for free on Comcast.

Our first experience with VOIP was when we ported our AT&T landline
number to T-Mobile's no-longer-offered T-Mobile@Home $10/mo. add-on to
our cell-phone plan. That seemed to work fine, but we were unable to
keep it when we switched from a prepaid cell-phone plan to month-by-month.

We then ported that number to Google Voice (with the Obihai VOIP box).
This was possible because our number now counted as a cellular number; I
don't know about now, but then only cellular numbers could be ported to GV.

Then for a period of several months GV became unusable with the Obihai
boxes, and it was at that time we got the PhonePower service. We still
have the GV number as a "public" one that forwards to the PhonePower
number, which we give out to very few people; outgoing calls show up as
the GV number too. Everything works fine.

Perce
Up here in Ontario Canada, I have used MagicJack - which gives north
america-wide free calling and local numbers are available in most
places, but no porting of numbers in Canada although they have been
promising it for about 5 years.
Cost, over and above the cost of the device is something like $18 per
year.

I bought an OOMA box for home - porting the number cost $39.00,
monthly charge is $4-ish and free long distance anywhere in Canada.

Phone voice quality is good. Occaisionally I get an echo - but no more
than on my cell (actually gnerally better)

On Wednesday, October 28, 2015 at 3:05:12 PM UTC-4, sms wrote:
On 10/27/2015 4:48 PM, Percival P. Cassidy wrote:
On 10/27/2015 07:25 PM, Eagle wrote:

Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

I already had cable Internet service and added an Obihai OB202 VOIP box
(maybe $50 or so on sale) and have phone service from PhonePower
(approx. $60 for a year with a discount coupon, I think).

Free local and lnog-distance within the US. Not sure about Canada. No
complaints.

Google Voice now works with those Obihai boxes and is free.

Perce


I use an Obihai 202 with RingTo. There is no cost for RingTo but they
require you to sign up for E911 service with a separate provider and
that costs $12 per year. So essentially I am paying $1 per month.

I looked into Ooma but it was a lot more expensive, even for the basic
service, than RingTo and Obihai.

The Ooma basic service is ~$3.75 a month. That's what I'm paying.
Depends on what your definition of a lot more expensive than $1 is I guess.

On Wednesday, October 28, 2015 at 2:46:23 PM UTC-4, Frank wrote:
On 10/28/2015 11:21 AM, Eagle wrote:
Eagle expressed precisely :
Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

Thanks to everyone for their view on voip! I will most likely go with ooma,

Eagle

Sounds like a good deal.

Wonder how you get your land line number switched to ooma?

You just request Ooma to port it over, which you can do online.
I think they charge $40 to do it.



I remember it was somewhat of a PITA to switch a land line from Verizon
to Comcast VoIP.


One thing to be aware of is a problem I ran into when trying to port
with MajicJack. Only a single, basic line can be ported. In my case
I had distinctive ring with a second number set up on my Verizon
landline. I had used the second ring # for a fax in the past, but
hadn't used it in so long that I didn't even think about it. So,
I put a port request into MJ. Their system accepted the port request
and a few days later, it came back that they could not port it for
the above reason. OK, so you'd think that would be easy to solve.
It was on the Verizon side. I just had them put the line back to
the basic service. Of course that also cost me another month service
on Verizon. So, then I go back to MJ and try to put the port request
in again on their system and now their system won't accept that number
to port. It just said "this number cannot be ported", where previously
it had accepted it and tried. Clearly this is a MJ issue. I wasted
a lot of time in chat with MJ support and all they have were idiots,
chatting in broken English. No one could escalate it, address it, etc.
That's when I took the thing back to RadioShack.

So, if you're going to do a port, make sure you don't run into
that problem.

On 10/28/2015 2:57 PM, Eagle wrote:
After serious thinking Frank wrote :
On 10/28/2015 11:21 AM, Eagle wrote:
Eagle expressed precisely :
Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

Thanks to everyone for their view on voip! I will most likely go with
ooma,

Eagle

Sounds like a good deal.

Wonder how you get your land line number switched to ooma?

I remember it was somewhat of a PITA to switch a land line from
Verizon to Comcast VoIP.

I kept a 2nd land line for business use but it is connected to a FIOS
box in the house. Verizon had replaced our deteriorating copper with
FIOS a few years ago. They still retain pricing and charge for extra
services like caller ID. Stuff you get for free on Comcast.

I use verizon now, and am not happy about the cost. Internet, TV and
phone costs $220.00 per month, and That is just too much. Fiber optic
interenet access is good, but is it worth the expense?

Every year with Comcast, it is a renegotiation to get back to initial
offering prices. I understand you can do the same with Verizon.

Our neighborhood has access to both and as mentioned I have both lines
to my house.

My neighbor across the street will switch services if one will not
oblige him with reasonable prices. I might do it but wife does not like
the hassle. Verizon constantly bugs me to take more than the phone. I
often respond to ask them with a VoIP connected phone, why don't I get
full VoIP service. Also tell them I will take their initial 2 year
offer if they guarantee for life. Waste of my time doing this.

On 10/28/2015 11:57 AM, Eagle wrote:

I use verizon now, and am not happy about the cost. Internet, TV and
phone costs $220.00 per month, and That is just too much. Fiber optic
interenet access is good, but is it worth the expense?

I got tired of all the monthly fees.

I dropped DirecTV and put up an antenna. TV is now free. We don't miss
the 700 satellite channels, most of which were junk.

I dropped the DSL and landline.

I got 25 Mb/s Comcast service for $40 per month (plus taxes and fees)
and that includes basic SD cable and On-Demand for network shows and one
SD box. No DVR.

I got an Obihai 202 for VOIP service and ported my landline to RingTo.
$1 per month.

Our life is no worse. I can't watch my college football games at home
anymore, so I have to go to a local bar where the alumni meet to watch
the games. More fun anyway, if only the bar would learn how to pour
Guinness properly.

Ooma isn't a bad deal, but it's still expensive compared to other VOIP
providers.

On 10/27/2015 4:25 PM, Eagle wrote:
Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?


Voip? I think that was in the ****ter this morning.
LOL

On Fri, 30 Oct 2015 13:52:16 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 10/28/2015 11:57 AM, Eagle wrote:

I use verizon now, and am not happy about the cost. Internet, TV and
phone costs $220.00 per month, and That is just too much. Fiber optic
interenet access is good, but is it worth the expense?

I got tired of all the monthly fees.

I dropped DirecTV and put up an antenna. TV is now free. We don't miss
the 700 satellite channels, most of which were junk.

I dropped the DSL and landline.

I got 25 Mb/s Comcast service for $40 per month (plus taxes and fees)
and that includes basic SD cable and On-Demand for network shows and one
SD box. No DVR.

I got an Obihai 202 for VOIP service and ported my landline to RingTo.
$1 per month.

Our life is no worse. I can't watch my college football games at home
anymore, so I have to go to a local bar where the alumni meet to watch
the games. More fun anyway, if only the bar would learn how to pour
Guinness properly.

Ooma isn't a bad deal, but it's still expensive compared to other VOIP
providers.
How is it expensive?? I pay $4 per month for E911 service and
"access fees"

Colonel Edmund J. Burke laid this down on his screen :
On 10/27/2015 4:25 PM, Eagle wrote:
Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?


Voip? I think that was in the ****ter this morning.
LOL

You mean your breakfast I left you?

Percival P. Cassidy explained :
On 10/27/2015 07:25 PM, Eagle wrote:

Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

I already had cable Internet service and added an Obihai OB202 VOIP box
(maybe $50 or so on sale) and have phone service from PhonePower (approx. $60
for a year with a discount coupon, I think).

Free local and lnog-distance within the US. Not sure about Canada. No
complaints.

Google Voice now works with those Obihai boxes and is free.

Perce

Question...what about security? Is there an issue with security you
need to know about?

Uncle Monster was thinking very hard :
On Wednesday, October 28, 2015 at 6:58:04 AM UTC-5, trader_4 wrote:
On Tuesday, October 27, 2015 at 8:07:52 PM UTC-4, Harry Butz wrote:
On 10/27/2015 07:25 PM, Eagle wrote:
Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

I'm rather fond of ooma.com as are millions of other consumer reports
subscribers.

+1

I tried MajicJack and Nettalk and wouldn't touch either with a 10 ft
poll. Fortunately MJ I was able to return to RadioShack. Nettalk
I had for a year. Serious problems with both in terms of support.
Neither have a voice phone support number, relying on emails and/or
chat windows. I found MJ support via chat available, but totally
incompetent. Nettalk, chat line is all backed up, they push you off
to open a trouble ticket online, then they never respond to it. Check out
Amazon for ratings there by customers and you'll see NT really, really
sucks. Among the problems with NT, while for a month or two it was
fine, it then started going into red light mode at least once a week.
Until I cycled the power, it was out of service.

So, 6 months ago I switched to Ooma. Very satisfied. It's been
reliable and they have real phone support that answers when you call.
I had no trouble getting a real person on the line and the person
sounded like they were US based. With NT ad MJ, IDK where they were,
but the chat was in broken English. Ooma service is "free", but you
have to pay for the device up front and monthly taxes and fees. The
taxes/fees run me $3.75 a month. The box they were selling for $120,
but they have sales where it's been $100, probably will again for the
holiday season. You can also buy new or used ones on Ebay. The service
includes unlimited US/Canada, unlimited Ooma to Ooma anywhere. They
have international calling by the minute. And they have a smartphone
app that lets you make or receive calls from your home # on your
smartphone via wifi. I found the smartphone app voice quality and
reliability to be far superior to the similar apps that MJ and NT
offer. If you make a lot of calls, beware the other
players. All of them claim to have "unlimited" residential usage,
but they all really cap you at some number of monthly minutes and
don't tell you about that except in fine print in the contract. With
Ooma it's 5000 mins, something I'd never hit. I did manage to hit
the NT limit of 1500 mins one month and then they just cut you off
with no warning, service goes dead. When I signed up for a year, the
limit was 3000 mins and they changed it a few months later, with no
notice. Also, while the NT/MJ types offer
discounts if you sign up for 3 yrs or whatever of service, I'd never
do that or at least not until you're really sure it works for you
after at least a year.
Ooma also offers a premier service, for $10 a month that includes
a lot of features like conferencing, call forwarding, etc, if any of
that is something you need.

Another issue is porting numbers. All of the above ones charge $20
to $40 to port your old number in if you want to. Otherwise you
can pick a new number, in some cases you can get a very local one,
in others it may be another town in the state. How much that matters,
depends on you. Also, I think MJ was playing a game where they
charge you to port your number out if you want to leave and take it.
From what I saw, it's questionable if that is even legal.

But I would look at Amazon at reviews on whatever you are considering.
Wish I had thought of that before I started.

I would never recommend trying to use magicJack to replace a landline
especially if it's one you've had for years. I've had good luck with what I
use them for and I get voicemail via my Email which works great since I'm
away from home. One good use for a magicJack is for use as a private phone
number that can be used for temporary purposes. I'd give my magicJack number
to banks, insurance companies, hospitals or anyone I thought would share or
give my number out to telepests. When I ask for information for something
online that requires registration with a working phone number, the site gets
a magicJack number. I got a voicemail via my Email from one of my magicJack
numbers that was from a site that I requested information from 6 months ago.
To start with, I was getting 15 to 20 calls a day along with Emails sent to
one of my alternate Email addresses that I use for potential pests and the
damn calls and Emails went on for months because the site was sharing my
information with other companies. I got the information I wanted without
being pestered. I had an Affirmative Action Moron at a clinic give my
information to a bill collection agency when I refused to pay for services I
did not receive. The threatening voicemails to my magicJack number were
numerous and very entertaining. It took a couple of years for the calls from
those idiots to taper off until they finally gave up. A magicJack has it's
uses with the advantage of it working from a laptop anywhere there is a WiFi
connection. ^_^

[8~{} Uncle Jack Monster

That is what I am concerned about. I don't want to deal with phone spam
or email spam. Gmail filters span nicely, but filtering phone spam is
dificult. [Or is it?]

On Wednesday, November 11, 2015 at 11:08:05 AM UTC-6, Eagle wrote:
Uncle Monster was thinking very hard :
On Wednesday, October 28, 2015 at 6:58:04 AM UTC-5, trader_4 wrote:
On Tuesday, October 27, 2015 at 8:07:52 PM UTC-4, Harry Butz wrote:
On 10/27/2015 07:25 PM, Eagle wrote:
Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

I'm rather fond of ooma.com as are millions of other consumer reports
subscribers.

+1

I tried MajicJack and Nettalk and wouldn't touch either with a 10 ft
poll. Fortunately MJ I was able to return to RadioShack. Nettalk
I had for a year. Serious problems with both in terms of support.
Neither have a voice phone support number, relying on emails and/or
chat windows. I found MJ support via chat available, but totally
incompetent. Nettalk, chat line is all backed up, they push you off
to open a trouble ticket online, then they never respond to it. Check out
Amazon for ratings there by customers and you'll see NT really, really
sucks. Among the problems with NT, while for a month or two it was
fine, it then started going into red light mode at least once a week.
Until I cycled the power, it was out of service.

So, 6 months ago I switched to Ooma. Very satisfied. It's been
reliable and they have real phone support that answers when you call.
I had no trouble getting a real person on the line and the person
sounded like they were US based. With NT ad MJ, IDK where they were,
but the chat was in broken English. Ooma service is "free", but you
have to pay for the device up front and monthly taxes and fees. The
taxes/fees run me $3.75 a month. The box they were selling for $120,
but they have sales where it's been $100, probably will again for the
holiday season. You can also buy new or used ones on Ebay. The service
includes unlimited US/Canada, unlimited Ooma to Ooma anywhere. They
have international calling by the minute. And they have a smartphone
app that lets you make or receive calls from your home # on your
smartphone via wifi. I found the smartphone app voice quality and
reliability to be far superior to the similar apps that MJ and NT
offer. If you make a lot of calls, beware the other
players. All of them claim to have "unlimited" residential usage,
but they all really cap you at some number of monthly minutes and
don't tell you about that except in fine print in the contract. With
Ooma it's 5000 mins, something I'd never hit. I did manage to hit
the NT limit of 1500 mins one month and then they just cut you off
with no warning, service goes dead. When I signed up for a year, the
limit was 3000 mins and they changed it a few months later, with no
notice. Also, while the NT/MJ types offer
discounts if you sign up for 3 yrs or whatever of service, I'd never
do that or at least not until you're really sure it works for you
after at least a year.
Ooma also offers a premier service, for $10 a month that includes
a lot of features like conferencing, call forwarding, etc, if any of
that is something you need.

Another issue is porting numbers. All of the above ones charge $20
to $40 to port your old number in if you want to. Otherwise you
can pick a new number, in some cases you can get a very local one,
in others it may be another town in the state. How much that matters,
depends on you. Also, I think MJ was playing a game where they
charge you to port your number out if you want to leave and take it.
From what I saw, it's questionable if that is even legal.

But I would look at Amazon at reviews on whatever you are considering.
Wish I had thought of that before I started.

I would never recommend trying to use magicJack to replace a landline
especially if it's one you've had for years. I've had good luck with what I
use them for and I get voicemail via my Email which works great since I'm
away from home. One good use for a magicJack is for use as a private phone
number that can be used for temporary purposes. I'd give my magicJack number
to banks, insurance companies, hospitals or anyone I thought would share or
give my number out to telepests. When I ask for information for something
online that requires registration with a working phone number, the site gets
a magicJack number. I got a voicemail via my Email from one of my magicJack
numbers that was from a site that I requested information from 6 months ago.
To start with, I was getting 15 to 20 calls a day along with Emails sent to
one of my alternate Email addresses that I use for potential pests and the
damn calls and Emails went on for months because the site was sharing my
information with other companies. I got the information I wanted without
being pestered. I had an Affirmative Action Moron at a clinic give my
information to a bill collection agency when I refused to pay for services I
did not receive. The threatening voicemails to my magicJack number were
numerous and very entertaining. It took a couple of years for the calls from
those idiots to taper off until they finally gave up. A magicJack has it's
uses with the advantage of it working from a laptop anywhere there is a WiFi
connection. ^_^

[8~{} Uncle Jack Monster

That is what I am concerned about. I don't want to deal with phone spam
or email spam. Gmail filters span nicely, but filtering phone spam is
dificult. [Or is it?]

There are various methods for filtering phone spam and I'm thinking there is a residential unit that works like the commercial automated attendants where you must punch in a number to get to an extension. For many years I had an answering machine where I recorded SIT tones at the start of my greeting so robodialers are fooled into believing that my number is disconnected and no longer in service then the dialer would hangup and mark my number as a nonworking number in its database. That particular robodialer would never call my number again but it's like swatting gnats because there are so many of them out there getting my phone number from lists that are sold and passed around to all the telepests in the world. Check out the different SIT tones you can record to your answering machine. ^_^

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_information_tones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gw6cR_XTYg

[8~{} Uncle SIT Monster

On Wednesday, November 11, 2015 at 12:04:22 PM UTC-5, Eagle wrote:
Percival P. Cassidy explained :
On 10/27/2015 07:25 PM, Eagle wrote:

Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

I already had cable Internet service and added an Obihai OB202 VOIP box
(maybe $50 or so on sale) and have phone service from PhonePower (approx. $60
for a year with a discount coupon, I think).

Free local and lnog-distance within the US. Not sure about Canada. No
complaints.

Google Voice now works with those Obihai boxes and is free.

Perce

Question...what about security? Is there an issue with security you
need to know about?

Security with regard to what? Someone listening in on your calls?
It working when power is out? 911? Reliability? If it's someone
listening in, I've never seen it discussed. The traffic goes over
the internet, unencrypted, AFAIK, with all the VOIP services. So,
it would seem about as secure as any similar internet traffic. If
someone wants to listen in, is smart enough, determined enough, they
can, just like with a phone call on the old copper system. It's
probably more secure than that, because with the old system you could
tap in with stuff not much better than an ordinary phone by getting
to the wires in the building, going to the street, etc.

Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

I have been using 1-VOIP (previously called "VOIP Your Life") since 2007. I
pay $20.55 per month, which includes 500 minutes in the US and Canada. We
make very few phone calls and have never come anywhere close to 500 minutes
in a month. It comes with a variety of call filtering options, voice mail,
and virtual phone numbers.

It has worked very well for us. We haven't had any issues except for my own
network problem that prevented incoming calls from getting through. I reset
my modem, router, and switches and never had the problem again.

I had a different VOIP provider before 2007 (don't remember their name),
but they went out of business.

Before we switched to VOIP our local phone company charged almost $100 per
month (We're in a rural area). That was with NO long distance, and NO
filtering options of any kind. All of our family, and even stores in the
closest town were all long distance. Once I could get high speed internet,
switching to VOIP was a no brainer.

Because of the terrain here, we can't get reliable cell signals so that
route was not an option.

Anthony Watson
www.mountainsoftware.com
www.watsondiy.com

On Thursday, November 12, 2015 at 11:29:07 AM UTC-5, HerHusband wrote:
Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

I have been using 1-VOIP (previously called "VOIP Your Life") since 2007. I
pay $20.55 per month, which includes 500 minutes in the US and Canada. We
make very few phone calls and have never come anywhere close to 500 minutes
in a month. It comes with a variety of call filtering options, voice mail,
and virtual phone numbers.

It has worked very well for us. We haven't had any issues except for my own
network problem that prevented incoming calls from getting through. I reset
my modem, router, and switches and never had the problem again.

I had a different VOIP provider before 2007 (don't remember their name),
but they went out of business.

Before we switched to VOIP our local phone company charged almost $100 per
month (We're in a rural area). That was with NO long distance, and NO
filtering options of any kind. All of our family, and even stores in the
closest town were all long distance. Once I could get high speed internet,
switching to VOIP was a no brainer.

Because of the terrain here, we can't get reliable cell signals so that
route was not an option.

Anthony Watson
www.mountainsoftware.com
www.watsondiy.com

Check out Ooma. $4 a month, hardware costs $120 max, you can find it for
half that on Ebay. I've been using it 8 months now, works very well for me.
Sound quality is overall very good. Sometimes I do hear a slight echo, but
not really bad. I'd say it's not as good as the premier VOIP, eg Vonage
or your local cable company, but close enough that for $4, it's a great deal.

trader_4 wrote:

The traffic goes over the internet, unencrypted, AFAIK, with all the VOIP
services.

Ooma uses encryption.

On Thu, 12 Nov 2015 03:34:03 -0800 (PST), Uncle Monster
wrote:

On Wednesday, November 11, 2015 at 11:08:05 AM UTC-6, Eagle wrote:
Uncle Monster was thinking very hard :
On Wednesday, October 28, 2015 at 6:58:04 AM UTC-5, trader_4 wrote:
On Tuesday, October 27, 2015 at 8:07:52 PM UTC-4, Harry Butz wrote:
On 10/27/2015 07:25 PM, Eagle wrote:
Do you have a voip service? What does it cost you monthly? Are local
calls free? Long distance state to state?
I am thinking about dropping phone service and going with voip.
Your opinion?

I'm rather fond of ooma.com as are millions of other consumer reports
subscribers.

+1

I tried MajicJack and Nettalk and wouldn't touch either with a 10 ft
poll. Fortunately MJ I was able to return to RadioShack. Nettalk
I had for a year. Serious problems with both in terms of support.
Neither have a voice phone support number, relying on emails and/or
chat windows. I found MJ support via chat available, but totally
incompetent. Nettalk, chat line is all backed up, they push you off
to open a trouble ticket online, then they never respond to it. Check out
Amazon for ratings there by customers and you'll see NT really, really
sucks. Among the problems with NT, while for a month or two it was
fine, it then started going into red light mode at least once a week.
Until I cycled the power, it was out of service.

So, 6 months ago I switched to Ooma. Very satisfied. It's been
reliable and they have real phone support that answers when you call.
I had no trouble getting a real person on the line and the person
sounded like they were US based. With NT ad MJ, IDK where they were,
but the chat was in broken English. Ooma service is "free", but you
have to pay for the device up front and monthly taxes and fees. The
taxes/fees run me $3.75 a month. The box they were selling for $120,
but they have sales where it's been $100, probably will again for the
holiday season. You can also buy new or used ones on Ebay. The service
includes unlimited US/Canada, unlimited Ooma to Ooma anywhere. They
have international calling by the minute. And they have a smartphone
app that lets you make or receive calls from your home # on your
smartphone via wifi. I found the smartphone app voice quality and
reliability to be far superior to the similar apps that MJ and NT
offer. If you make a lot of calls, beware the other
players. All of them claim to have "unlimited" residential usage,
but they all really cap you at some number of monthly minutes and
don't tell you about that except in fine print in the contract. With
Ooma it's 5000 mins, something I'd never hit. I did manage to hit
the NT limit of 1500 mins one month and then they just cut you off
with no warning, service goes dead. When I signed up for a year, the
limit was 3000 mins and they changed it a few months later, with no
notice. Also, while the NT/MJ types offer
discounts if you sign up for 3 yrs or whatever of service, I'd never
do that or at least not until you're really sure it works for you
after at least a year.
Ooma also offers a premier service, for $10 a month that includes
a lot of features like conferencing, call forwarding, etc, if any of
that is something you need.

Another issue is porting numbers. All of the above ones charge $20
to $40 to port your old number in if you want to. Otherwise you
can pick a new number, in some cases you can get a very local one,
in others it may be another town in the state. How much that matters,
depends on you. Also, I think MJ was playing a game where they
charge you to port your number out if you want to leave and take it.
From what I saw, it's questionable if that is even legal.

But I would look at Amazon at reviews on whatever you are considering.
Wish I had thought of that before I started.

I would never recommend trying to use magicJack to replace a landline
especially if it's one you've had for years. I've had good luck with what I
use them for and I get voicemail via my Email which works great since I'm
away from home. One good use for a magicJack is for use as a private phone
number that can be used for temporary purposes. I'd give my magicJack number
to banks, insurance companies, hospitals or anyone I thought would share or
give my number out to telepests. When I ask for information for something
online that requires registration with a working phone number, the site gets
a magicJack number. I got a voicemail via my Email from one of my magicJack
numbers that was from a site that I requested information from 6 months ago.
To start with, I was getting 15 to 20 calls a day along with Emails sent to
one of my alternate Email addresses that I use for potential pests and the
damn calls and Emails went on for months because the site was sharing my
information with other companies. I got the information I wanted without
being pestered. I had an Affirmative Action Moron at a clinic give my
information to a bill collection agency when I refused to pay for services I
did not receive. The threatening voicemails to my magicJack number were
numerous and very entertaining. It took a couple of years for the calls from
those idiots to taper off until they finally gave up. A magicJack has it's
uses with the advantage of it working from a laptop anywhere there is a WiFi
connection. ^_^

[8~{} Uncle Jack Monster

That is what I am concerned about. I don't want to deal with phone spam
or email spam. Gmail filters span nicely, but filtering phone spam is
dificult. [Or is it?]

There are various methods for filtering phone spam and I'm thinking there is a residential unit that works like the commercial automated attendants where you must punch in a number to get to an extension. For many years I had an answering machine where I recorded SIT tones at the start of my greeting so robodialers are fooled into believing that my number is disconnected and no longer in service then the dialer would hangup and mark my number as a nonworking number in its database. That particular robodialer would never call my number again but it's like swatting gnats because there are so many of them out there getting my phone number from lists that are sold and passed around to all the telepests in the world. Check out the different SIT tones you can record to your answering machine. ^_^

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_information_tones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gw6cR_XTYg

[8~{} Uncle SIT Monster
If you use OOMA and pay for the premium package you can filter spam
seven ways to sunday - and mabee even more!!