atmaspheric | endeavors

We are a couple of weeks in with Ooma and there are a few rather annoying things I’d like to report.

• About 80 – 90% of the calls we receive and 10% of the calls we make have an audible buzzing background sound and make it very difficult to hear the other party. The sound is audible on both sides of the conversation.
• My Caller ID (outbound) has yet to activate. It’s been several weeks and I’ve even received a piece of mail (paper) confirming things from Verizon.
• Verizon is still listed as my carrier for Regional Toll Calling and Long Distance. Unless I missed something here I was under the impression that Ooma was making changes to my call plans with my existing carrier (as per their agreement on signup) which would eliminate all but minimal charges with VZ. Instead I’ve got both though I’m missing the standard features like CallerID and have been given crappy call quality as an added bonus.

I tried calling Ooma this am to discuss but while their web site says they open at 8am PST, the recording states they won’t be open until 8:30 instead. My wife is less than pleased… Operators are standing by…

Update

– My buzzing sound has been reported and has been forwarded to engineering. CallerID is apparently hidden for “Security Reasons” by default, but you can enable it on outgoing calls by dialing *82. I expressed my discontent with this option and suggested it be a one time activation with the option to block as needed – the way everyone else handles it. Provisioning Ooma, apparently does NOTHING with your existing carrier LD service and you have to actively cancel Long Distance. I’m going to wait another month to see whether my call sound issues go away before trusting Ooma to be my sole provider at the house…

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Ooma, VOIP, Verizon