Like nearly everyone, my wife and I both have smartphones, but for more than a decade, we’ve also had what looks and acts like a “landline” in my home office and our bedroom.
Related Articles
Magid: Making taxes less taxing and tracking finances
Magid: A robot that vacuums, mops and empties its bins
Magid: Tuesday is Safer Internet Day. We can all do our part
Magid: Testing DeepSeek, the Chinese generative AI app
Magid: Testing prescription, over-the-counter continuous glucose monitors
The service we use is provided by Ooma, which is a leading provider of what is called “Voice Over Internet,” or “VOIP.”
Emergency calls
There are several reasons we have this service despite our smartphones. For one thing, it’s quick and easy to call 911 in an emergency. Unlike smartphones, the 911 operator knows exactly where you are because you register your street address when you sign up. If you call 911 from a cell phone, they have to rely on GPS, cell tower triangulation or other approximate measures to locate you, which is not necessarily precise, especially if you’re in an apartment building or condo.
And, though it’s not difficult to dial 911 from a smartphone, it’s definitely easier from a standard handset. Just pick it up and dial 3 numbers instead of having to wake up the phone, unlock it, click on your phone app, dial the numbers and press send. And that assumes that your cell phone is charged, has a signal, is nearby and you can find it. I don’t always have my cell phone with me at home, and frankly, sometimes I’m not sure where I left it. My Ooma phone is either connected to a wire or in its charging station.
Also, cellular 911 calls aren’t necessarily answered by nearby operators. I’ve experienced long hold times when I’ve called from my car to report road hazards or other people’s accidents. Fortunately, I’ve never had to report a life-threatening situation via cell phone, but I shudder to think about the implications or a delay. A few weeks ago, my wife noticed that a neighbor’s house was engulfed in flames. I didn’t know if it had been reported, so I used my Ooma line to call 911 and got through immediately to a local operator who knew exactly where I was calling from and informed me that they were already on the way.
Children
In an interview, Ooma CEO Eric Stang pointed out that it’s “also great for very young kids in the home,” who probably don’t have a cell phone. They can easily use a standard phone to call their parents or grandparents or dial 911 in an emergency.
Inexpensive hardware and nearly free service
To connect to Ooma, you start by purchasing a device called Telo, which you can buy for $69.99 at Amazon or Best Buy. Although it’s hard to believe, the basic phone service is free, but you have to pay a few dollars a month in taxes and regulatory fees. How much depends on your zip code. Where I live, it’s $7.49 a month, but it could be as low as $4.00. Either way, it’s a fraction of what you’d pay for a traditional landline, assuming you can get one. AT&T is in the process of phasing out its copper wire landline service in many of its service areas. We disconnected our AT&T landline about 7 years ago for three reasons. It was expensive, the call quality was staticky, and we mostly got spam calls. Our Ooma calls are crystal clear and reliable, assuming we have good internet service. Ooma also has an LTE product that works even if your home internet goes down. And speaking of spam, Ooma offers a $9.99 per month premier plan that blocks suspected spammers, anonymous callers, and/or numbers reported by Ooma users and lets you blocklist or “green list” callers to control who can or can’t get through. The premier plans also includes free calls to Mexico and Canada.
The Telo device connects to your home internet gateway or router and has a standard RJ-11 telephone plug for a regular phone handset, the same type of phone that connects to the Plain Old Telephone Service, which is affectionately referred to as a POTS. You can also connect a cordless base station and use regular cordless phones. For $50 per instrument, you can purchase up to four Ooma HD3 handsets, which are nice cordless phones that have clear HD Voice, caller ID and an onscreen phone book that you can update from any handset, the web or the Ooma smartphone app. It also gives you a second line. I have one in my bedroom, which is up a staircase and on the other side of the house from my Telo device, and the calls are quite clear. I also have a standard two-line office phone hardwired to my Ooma Telo for incoming calls and outgoing business calls.
The Ooma app can also be used to receive or make calls from your smartphone regardless of whether you’re home, away from home or out of the country. That means you can give out your home phone number and take calls wherever you. You can make free calls anywhere in the United States from anywhere you have an internet connection. You can also make inexpensive international calls from home or with the app, typically for between 2 and 3 cents a minute, which is a lot less than you would pay if you were using your cell phone service. I know someone who lives in South America who uses an Ooma phone to have a U.S. incoming number and make free calls to the U.S.
Battery backup and optional LTE service
One difference between an internet line and an old-fashioned landline is that landlines used their own copper wires, which provide phone service and power to standard phones, though many people have cordless phones that do require power. I want my Ooma phone to work in the event of a power outage, so I have my internet modem and router, and my Telo connected to a battery backup system that will keep all three devices, and my internet connected if the power goes out. But Ooma has an even better option that I’m thinking of upgrading to because it also keeps your phone working if the internet goes down.
Ooma Telo LTE with Battery Backup, which costs $129.99 plus $19.99 a month, comes with the Ooma Premier phone service, 1GB of LTE cellular connection for backup internet, backup battery for power outages and free calling to the U.S., Mexico and Canada. In other words, it will work even if all the lines to your house for power and internet are down, which could happen in a major storm, earthquake or other disaster, though it does rely on cellular service, which could also go down if there is a major disaster.
Like old-fashioned landlines, Ooma phones aren’t as high-tech as smartphones. They don’t run apps, and you can’t use them to log into the web or social media. There was a time when I would have considered that a major drawback, but these days that “plain old telephone system” is starting to look pretty good.
You can hear the podcast interview with Ooma CEO Eric Stang at ConnectSafely.org/podcast.
Related Articles
Housing development site in downtown San Jose staggers into default
Nvidia sales surge in the fourth quarter on demand for AI chips
California insurance regulators urge State Farm to expand coverage in exchange for rate hikes
Notre Dame de Namur seeks new Belmont campus buyer after Stanford pulls out
Bishop Ranch in San Ramon seeks transformation into new neighborhood
Larry Magid is a tech journalist and internet safety activist. Contact him at larry@larrymagid.com.
