So I’m over on amazon.com and I see this contraption with the words ooma Core VoIP Phone System with No Monthly Phone Service Bills. Of course the No Monthly Phone Service Bills catches my attention sort of like
No Monthly Phone Service Bills!!
But or course I’m not naive and I know it doesn’t mean I can have phone service for free. Now wouldn’t that be cool; but right now I’m paying something like $175 - 225 per month for Comcast phone/cable/internet service. If I could reduce that I certainly wouldn’t hesitate.
After listening to the ooma video though I’m not sure how it would work for me. The service sounds really innovative, and I like the idea of taking power away from the phone company; but even if I switched to ooma I’d still have to pay for high speed internet and cable.
Just from a quick read it does seem like this system can save you a lot on your phone service. You literally only purchase the system it seems. As a matter of fact, if I’m not misunderstanding what I’m reading, you don’t even have to sign up for their premier service. You can have unlimited free phone service with just the system alone. You spend $229 for the system, hook it up to your high speed Internet and that’s all you have to pay unless you want their enhanced feature in which case you pay $99 per year.
Hmm, I wonder how much it would save me if I did this. Let’s see, right now I’m paying $49.39 per month for comcast digital voice. If I buy the ooma system and subscribe to their premier services I’ll spend a total of $328 for the first year, $229 to purchase the system and $99 for a year of the premier service. At the current rate of $49.39 per month, I’m paying amazon $592.68 per year for their digital voice service. Add the digital voice to the high speed internet and the cable plus the monthly surcharges and other fees and I’m looking at 2086.68 per year. Take out comcast digital voice and out in ooma and that drops to $1593 thereabout. This computes to paying $173.89 per month using comcast digital voice, and paying $132.75 per month using ooma. I’d be saving $41.14. Now, considering things like international calls and other factors not being held in account, the savings could end up being even less; so I’d have to look for other things to cut back in order to make it personally worth the switch; but the phone companies are never looking for ways to help their existing customers save. What they say in the ooma video is very true. They try their best to lock you in and keep you locked in. I should probably do some shopping around to see how I can bring my monthly phone, high speed internet and cable service bills down to about $100 per month.
If you want to learn more about ooma or to sign up for the service or purchase the system you can go to the amazon.com page: ooma Core VoIP Phone System with No Monthly Phone Service Bills