Ooma

[Ed Anger]

Just don't do MagicJack. What a load of shit.

[MadImmortalMan]

Just don't do MagicJack. What a load of shit.

We tried that. They sell your info. Ooma probably does too. Enjoy the sales calls.

[Arvoreen]

I dumped my landline a long time ago and ported the number to an 'add a line' to my cell plan.  I also had a bluetooth -> landline bridge that I plugged my wireless phone into (a panasonic with 5 wireless handsets).  This let me use the phones I had already in the house, via bluetooth, with my cell phone (just left it on the charger next to the bluetooth bridge).

That worked for a few years, until I decided to dump Verizon.  I switched over to T-Mobile earlier this year and dropped my phone bill, even though I went from 2 lines with data (on Verizon) + 1 on AT&T (my grandfathered unlimited plan) -> 5 data phones on T-Mobile (my wife decided she wanted a personal phone again). I think my overall bill went from ~$400 down to under $300.  I'm down to like $250 or less now, after tuning down the unlimited data on the lines that never used them

At any rate, T-Mobile had a limit of 5 lines, so I had to find a different solution for my home phone.  I ported the number to Google Voice, then went and bought an OBI100 device from OBITalk (http://www.obitalk.com/info/products).  I picked a VOIP plan from Anveo (https://www.anveo.com/) for like $40/year or something cheap. This was only because Google Voice was dropping support for the OBITalk device at the time....but since then, it is directly supported, so no extra VOIP service is necessary. (http://www.obitalk.com/info/googlevoice)

You can even support 2 VOIP plans on the device, if it was something you would be interested in.  If you don't need anything beyond the straight Google Voice service, then you can get away without any monthly cost.  Porting your number to Google Voice is like $20.  And you also can get it to ring your cell phone(s) and/or google hangouts.

[KRonn]

I still have a landline through my cable service, and it's about $25 monthly. I had Verizon before that, a while ago, and it was around $45 or so and I wanted to cut down costs. I don't use my cell phone much and I buy minutes every few months for $15 or more that gets me through a couple of months or more depending how much I buy.

[derspiess]

Just don't do MagicJack. What a load of shit.

We tried that. They sell your info. Ooma probably does too. Enjoy the sales calls.

I don't think Ooma does that.  They just try to up-sell you on "Premiere" service and other add-on services and devices. 

My best friend bought an Ooma when they moved from Denver to Houston last year and did not bother porting their number.  They've only given out their new number to 3 or 4 people and those are the only people who ever call them on that line.

So far, mine has been working great.  Call quality actually seems better than Vonage.  I lost the automatic voicemail transcription that Vonage offered, but that was hardly ever very accurate in the first place.  But the device will email an .mp3 of your voicemails when you get them. 

[Scipio]

Ooma is pretty fucking good. Better voice quality than Vonage.

[dps]

Spicey, let me know how it works out - I am also looking to cut back drastically, of possible, on monthly data/connection charges.

I realized that it is pretty crazy at this point:

1. Cell bill for three of us (soon to be 4): $250
2. Internet: $65
3. DirectTV: $162
4. Landline phone: $40

We dumped our landline years ago, but aa is talking about getting one again.  Apparently we can get one for about $10/month, but I haven't seen the offer, just heard her describe it.  I don't even know which provider it's through.  I haven't really looked because we're thinking about completely changing around our services anyway, but not until March at the earliest.  We're not paying as much as you, but I still think we're overpaying.  Our cell phones run us $150/month for the 3 of us, with essentially unlimited talk and text (technically we have a ceiling on our free minutes a month, but the 3 of us together don't use in 3 months the minutes each of us is allowed in one month), so I think that's OK, but maybe we could do better.  But maybe not.

It's our internet and cable that I really want to look into changing.  Last year we switched back to cable from DirectTV so that we could bundle our internet and TV service, but I'm not happy with it.  First of all, I was told that the connection fee would be pro-rated over the first 3 months of service, but no, it was all on the first month's bill.  Second, it was supposed to be about $150 a month, and it was for the first 6 months.  Then it went up to about $200/month.  I went to talk to them about it, and what had happened was that we had had a free 6 months of Showtime and HBO, and the free trial had ended.  Ok, fair enough.  But we never really use either of those, so I dropped them.   But did the bill go back down to $150?  Nope, they dropped off the $50 charge for HBO and Showtime and HBO and just upped the rates on the rest of our services to make up the difference.  This pissed me off a lot.

Plus, I'm not really happy with the service.  With DirectTV, we only had 1 DVR, but all the other TV in the house could still get all of our channels, with no extra charges for multiple TVs.  With our cable plan, we actually have 2 DVRs, but the other TVs can only get about a third of our channels, and each TV adds and additional charge.  Plus there's been a reliability issue.  Oddly enough, not with the cable--we've had no interruptions in service there--but with the internet.  When we bundled our services, we supposedly got upgraded internet, but it's actually slower and we lose the Wi-Fi signal quite a bit.

[derspiess]

If anyone wants to do the Ooma thing and you don't already have someone to refer you, PM me for a referral code that can get you the device for $90 shipped.  Regular price is $110-$120.