Oh, Ooma!

I like their cheap service in order to keep a semblance of a landline. VOIP when we're home plus the app when away keeps us covered with a BC phone number/voice mail. 

The plastic used on the original Telo was of pretty poor quality. Although the unit still worked, after five years, we needed to replace it as the degrading plastic just got too ugly to clean. I got the TeloAir2 via Amazon a few weeks ago. 

Ooma must make specific instructions for those updating their devices. I kept putting off the procedure of the switchover because it sounded too damned difficult, especially with useless customer support people. They know a lot less about the devices than I do. Hey, the Ooma Installation app sucks too. In fact, it could not be used with my existing account. It did not accept my new device.

   

There would have been no trouble switching over if the procedure were clearly outlined ANYWHERE. 

1) Call customer support in the evening in order to add the new device to an existing account. 

2) Wait until morning to ensure your old device is no longer working. 

3) Check under the account online dashboard, under SERVICES / SYSTEM INFORMATION that the new device's MAC address matches the new unit. 

4) Plug into the router and visit http://172.27.35.1 in a web browser to set up the wifi and other parameters. 

5) Wait for updates until the light turns blue.

6) Continue using the new device to make and receive phone calls. 

Getting my new Ooma Telo running wasted a whole lot of my life this morning.

Getting Back in Sync

We're slowly recovering from time-zone differences. I heard someone say that it takes one full night for each time zone crossed. The stopover in Turkey was the last place we had slept and it was 10 hours ahead of Vancouver. So, I'm expecting it'll take a week to rid ourselves of our new, weird sleeping patterns. Meanwhile, we will continue to get up unreasonably early. Today, started at 5:20 AM. 

We did normal shopping at the Canadian Superstore in Coquitlam this morning. We generally do this on Saturdays. Now the refrigerator is comfortably stocked.

 

We got our original Ooma Telo five years ago.  That was the time we ditched the landline from Telus.  It has worked well and continues to do so.  The main reason we're updating is that the type of plastic used in our original model didn't age well.  Have you ever encountered a plastic that gets sticky when it ages?  It's a major dust magnet and looks a little gross.

I ordered early this morning, so Amazon brought it today.  It was half the price of the original which required a USB stick for Wifi access.  The Air 2 has this and Bluetooth built-in.

I Live to Tinker

For a couple of days, we've found our phone was acting a bit flaky. This seemed odd because we've had great service from our Ooma Telo for over three years.  We've saved a tremendous amount of money by getting rid of the landline.  However, our Ooma lets us keep a flexible, British Columbian, home phone number.

I wondered if the device was developing a hardware problem. The online blue light was fine. I went to my Telo Dashboard and it indicated the device was online too. We had a dial tone, but, after dialling a majority of phone numbers, we'd hear nothing! I could both send and receive calls to my cell phone though. 

I clicked on the online chat button and a representative was with me almost immediately.  She suggested it was a problem with my router/modem ports and protocols. 

Then, I remembered tinkering with my modem settings through its http://192.168.0.1/ admin page. I often check to verify the dozens of connections made by my wifi smart home devices. I reset a few parameters, and my telephone service is back to normal. 

I am so happy I have enough junk to keep me occupied. I continue to learn technical minutiae most every day.

Momentarily Seeing Red

We've been using the Ooma Telo for more than two months. Initially, I encountered several garbled calls, but it has been rock solid for many weeks. We are quite pleased with their VoIP telephone service. We are definitely pleased saving $25 per month over our old Telus phone line. I cannot venture a guess as to how many robocalls were automatically blocked for us during the recent BC election campaigns.



A few moments ago, I looked over at the device and the always blue LED wasn't. The Telo was blinking red and I panicked. My wifi was fine when I noticed the little disruption. It lasted only a minute or so. Red indicates it has lost contact with its server. I suspect it also occurs when the firmware is updating. The dial tone returned after being offline for less the length of a normal phone call.

The Offer's Too Late

The Telus Loyalty Representative asked, "Are you sure I can't convince you to keep the line for a price of only $10/month?"

"No, we've already moved to our new Ooma number." "However, thanks for charging me $27/month for that line for a phone number we've paid for since the summer of 1996," I answered.

We did sort of enjoy considering all the people who may have had our old number. Changing wasn't much trouble, at all. It was something to keep us busy the week before Jay's heart surgery. We, of course, were reluctant to change over completely until now as the hospital, doctors, and specialists had that number.

As of about 2:30 AM tomorrow, 604-524-6197 will no longer belong to us. We have a new number and Jay has completely new blood-flow to his heart. It's a great time of year for a fresh start!

Out with the Old?

We are obviously mature because initially the thoughts of giving up a home phone number of over 20 years sounded scary. I must have had six different cell numbers over a span of much less, so I don't know why. People seemingly switch contact numbers more often than their underwear nowadays.

We do not really have such a great number of contacts. It'd take only a few dozen calls or email to inform every person in the world who'd need to know. Similarily, we could only come up with several dozen companies or organizations which would need to be advised of a change to our number.

After a little analysis, maybe it'd be good for us to switch to the number provided by Ooma and simply cancel our old Telus landline. I did read a lot of porting horror stories, yet I assume the process has been streamlined over the years. I was wondering: Is it worth the extra effort involved to keep our old number though?

Starting fresh is starting to sound like an excellent idea.

Every Day is a Weekend

I was thinking how sad it is that some people look forward to the weekend. We are able to look forward to every single day.

Saturday mornings generally involve grocery shopping. That happened. When we got back, there was an Amazon box in the hallway in front of our door. Cool. I don't know how the delivery guy got in the building, but this was much better than having them come back on Monday.

The box contained my second Ooma device. In New Westminster, Amazon Prime packages are generally delivered the next day, regardless of the shipping choice selected. Yesterday, my first Ooma Telo had an incorrect activation code. After speaking with technical support, I figured returning it would be easier than filling out a support ticket and waiting a day or two for them to get back to me. Yesterday afternoon, I dropped off the box for free return shipping.



So, another got here while we were shopping this morning. I opened it to find 'old' setup instructions which didn't show a simple setup for WiFi. Yet, I was familiar with the procedure by what I'd read during research. I got it running, but it opened an account for Ooma Office. That was clearly a mistake as the units differ in their appearance and mine was definitely the type designed for residential use. A call to support nearly had me ready to return the shipment but one useful customer representative said they could re-flash the box and I could set up again. Okay, that made sense. I wondered if it'd really take them 24 hours to accomplish this. The count stood at zero for two.

We got a call from our dentist. We'd made an appointment because Jay thought he'd lost a filling because of a little pain. Although we haven't been to the uptown dentist since we retired, they made an appointment easily. It was set for tomorrow, but they called at about 2:15 PM and said an appointment had been cancelled and they'd be able to fit him in then. It was a tiny new cavity that required a filling. Luckily, he had the work done right then. In fact, he was out of the office in less than a half hour!

It was a bit of an emergency and we read patients are not advised to have any dental work done for at least three months after open heart surgery. Jay is scheduled for his bypass operation on Tuesday. It would not have been nice living with a tooth ache until July!

When I was waiting for Jay, Ooma support emailed to say my Telo was ready for setup. It's three times is a charm, I guess. I will see how happy I am with the service before porting over our Telus number. Message me and I'll give you the new number.

A Home Phone for 2017

My brand new Android TV Box seems sooo last week. I am already in dire need of another 'gadget fix'. To correct the situation, I just ordered an Ooma VOIP phone device from Amazon Canada.

We've had the same phone number for 21 years. I know that having a landline sounds a little-old school nowadays, but we find having one comforting. I mean everybody and their brother have our number and those digits feel as permanent as a tattoo. (We also still get a newspaper delivered to our door every day but that is the story for another day.)



It is usually easy to hate one's telecommunications provider, but I don't. Telus gave us our phone number back when they were called, BC Tel. We get broadband and television over IP through them now too. The customer service is pretty good nowadays and they make it easy to arrange for Canadian snowbird service. You know, that means when we duck away to a warmer place during winters and everything stays on hold with a nominal monthly fee for each service.

Lately though, our bills have been increasing. The bundles were recently reduced to providing only a $3 savings per service. For years, we had a grandfathered deal, but now I notice that our monthly landline bill is over $27. That is too high a price for the privilege of having a phone service we seldom use.

I have decided to go with Ooma Basic which has a total cost of around $4 in taxes and fees per month. Of course, I had to purchase some equipment upfront but after a few months, I'll have earned that money back. Now that it's the law, our favourite old number will be joining the Internet age. I suppose if I want to pack up the small Ooma box, it can even go on our winter vacations with us, and it'll cost less than Telus charges for just holding the number.

Mostly, I'm looking forward to learning something new. I'll undoubtedly share more about this after the box arrives next week which incidentally should be a busy one with Jay's re-scheduled surgery on Tuesday.