Which VOIP?

sligett thought this was worth mentioning said Thu, Dec 17th 2015 at 9:51am ET

Ok, I bought the Ooma thingie for VOIP from Meh, and I plan to set it up over the holiday break. But I see Newegg has a cheap Obihai OBi200 VOIP box today. I've never done a home VOIP thingie. So I'm asking for advice from all the Meh VOIP geeks - will my Ooma do what I need? Is the Obihai better/worse? etc? Will they work in Canada?

Purple?

Thanks.

13 comments
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PlacidPenguin said Thu, Dec 17th 2015 at 10:22am ET:

Purple. Definitely purple.

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Barney said Thu, Dec 17th 2015 at 10:44am ET:

I love purple.

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hallmike said Thu, Dec 17th 2015 at 12:50pm ET:

If you already have the Ooma, I'd stick with that. I don't have any experience with the Obihai, but it doesn't look like it offers the same features. I have had Ooma for years and love it. The call blocking feature alone is worth the Premier cost to me.

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Pavlov said Thu, Dec 17th 2015 at 3:19pm ET:

Obihai and Ooma are completely different animals. Obihai is wonderful in that you can configure it to use Google Voice and never pay for port (you don't need a VOIP provider, it just works, right out of the box [but no 911 service]). Ooma is what you're probably going to want to use in the 51st State.

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RedOak said Thu, Dec 17th 2015 at 3:34pm ET:

Why mess with a great service? Use your Ooma. No hassle, easy to set up and use. And it has support if you need it. 911 service included. It just works. (Been using it with Premier pkg for several years and never looked back.)

I think the Premier pkg includes free calls to Canada.

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PocketBrain said Thu, Dec 17th 2015 at 4:23pm ET:

I use my Obihai Obi100 for my "home" phone with Google Voice phone number. Yeah, caveat is no 911, but that's what a cell phone is for, right? I took a lightning hit recently that blew it up, but I have a spare, so I'll be back in business.

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greyhoundw said Thu, Dec 17th 2015 at 9:21pm ET:

I use my Obihai 200 as a "home" phone too and have been running a setup with Google Voice for about 2 years now. It's been fantastic. Again, no 911, but it's hard to argue with free phone service. There are 911 service options available that cost ~ $12 - $20 per year if you need it. The Obi has the added bonus of working with other VOIP service providers too, if Google Voice ever goes away.

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macromeh said Thu, Dec 17th 2015 at 9:41pm ET:

I've been testing both an Ooma and an Obihai Ob200 for the last couple weeks. Both seem to have reasonable voice quality but unfortunately I think my internet connection has too much latency to make it work as a full-time home phone. Sometimes the communication is fine, but sometimes there is a large delay which causes the parties to talk over each other. This happens with both VOIP products, so I think it is the internet connection.

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craigthom said Thu, Dec 17th 2015 at 10:00pm ET:

You've already got the Ooma, so it makes sense to stick with that.

I decided to go with a roll-your-own VOIP setup, buying an IP-to-phone adapter (ATA) and buying the service separately. I went with Callcentric, but there are other VOIP service providers.

I do pay a monthly fee, but I was able to match my usage. You can go straight pay per minute (inbound is about 1.5 cents a minute, outbound US, Canada, and some other countries is just under 2, others vary), or you can get plans with different included minutes. The plans for incoming and outgoing can be separate, so you can tailor it to your usage.

They have some completely free numbers available, incoming only, so I got one. I decided to use it as a fax number. I set up a rule so that they answer it as a fax and email me a PDF. That cost nothing. Without the free number I could do that with my regular number and just enable and disable the feature when I'm expecting a fax.

I have my main number set up so that incoming calls from numbers that are not on my whitelist are prompted to enter a random number (1-9, I think) so I get no robocalls ever.

Anyway, that's just what I did, partly because I wanted control, and partly because it was fun to set up and fun to play with. It requires configuring the box, so it's not plug and play.

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metageist said Fri, Dec 18th 2015 at 12:23am ET:

I use the Obihai with Google Voice as a free phone at home. I get terrible signal on my cell phone so its the best way for me to take conference calls (I work from home).

I never tried the Ooma but if you already have it you should just give that a try first. I would guess the Obihai comes with a little additional setup headache, and if you feel like switching in the future its really not that expensive to buy an Obihai not on sale.

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djslack said Fri, Dec 18th 2015 at 1:00am ET:

I'm in agreement with everyone else here. Use the Ooma unless you have problems with using it in Canadia. You've already got it and its a known good service for cheap. The Obihai is good for Google Voice but I don't think it's as plug and play-more of a geek's solution.

If you love to tinker get both and experiment, but if you just want phone service, try what you've got first.

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thismyusername said Fri, Dec 18th 2015 at 2:11am ET:

I have a obi 110 (it lets you bridge the google voice/SIP provider and a real landline) and it has been great for several years now.

I really do like oh-bye-hi as a brand... the little thing has been very reliable... the advantage to the obi would be you can use any SIP provider (and some non/custom sip providers like google)... where as the ooma is stuck on ooma... but I've never really heard anything bad about ooma... so... I guess I'm not much help here. ;)

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mydrivec said Sat, Dec 19th 2015 at 12:10am ET:

Ooma is the way to go. I've had mine for over 5 years. Love it. Under $5 per month for unlimited US calling? Yes...I don't pay for the premium and can still get my voicemail from the app on my phone. Call logs and such work well. My old Cox internet was 25 down and 10 up...never had any issues with latency or clarity. Clear as a bell. New internet is 50 down and 50 up...same thing. LOVE IT

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