Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Qwest (and other phone bullies) better wise up, or a little kid called Ooma is gonna kick them where it counts

I am very excited to announce another step away from the "financial tyranny of phone companies". Today I got my Ooma system which I bought on Amazon.com for $180. The Ooma system allows for telephone charges that are free. That's right free! Not a penny or two a minute. Nothing!

Within 4 months, the system pays for itself. That's a kick butt ROI.

Installation was simple. I plugged the box into my DSL box, and then from there to my network router. Then my main wireless phone receiver into the Ooma box. Then within a few minutes of setting up an account online, I got a dial tone and could make free calls.

A couple of minor catches:

  • I have to pay the one time fee of $39.99 to port my old phone number - but that's worth it.
  • At the start of the second year, the calls are still free, but I have to start paying the yearly $11 tax - I was wondering about tax. Can't really get around that, but $11/year for phone service isn't bad.

  • The phone system is only as reliable as your internet - which so far has been pretty reliable, although overpriced.



I called Qwest to cancel my over $50/month phone service and gladly told them I'm going to be paying $0/month for phone service. They tried to cut me a deal, but they couldn't come close to free. Can't wait to hear about more people jumping on the Ooma bandwagon and really make the big dogs sweat!

You gotta check them out. Ooma.com

2 comments:

Andrew said...

Hey Gordon... who are you using for DSL then? Still Qwest?

Gords said...

Yeah, until they tick me off more, and then I'll just go to Comcast.