Ooma: The End Of The Phone Bill By Alexsandralyn on Nov 11, 2009 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

My dream phone would let me call everybody I wanted to, local and long distance, for free. Not for $20 per month or $20 per year, but FREE.

Ooma is a VOIP service that uses your high speed internet connection for telephone service. I'd heard of Vonage before, and Ooma sets up very similarly to the way Vonage does. You purchase the Ooma hub, connect that to your cable modem, and then connect your telephone base unit to the Ooma hub. But unlike Vonage, Ooma is FREE. Yes, that's right, somebody actually made my dream phone. No more monthly phone bills. The reviews that I had read from other owners were good, so I took a chance on this product that had never been advertised and I bought it for myself.

Ooma was easy for me to set up myself. I could have kept my old phone number for a $40 one-time porting charge, but it wasn't worth it to me. I selected a new phone number from the list for free and I got rid of all of those annoying telemarketers in one fell swoop.

Ooma's free service includes: free U.S. calling, free caller ID and call-waiting, free voicemail, and free in-network international calling. If you opt for the $10 per month premier package, you can add a second phone number to the same Ooma hub to give the household teenagers their own separate phone line.

I've been very happy with Ooma. The voice quality is superb. It's more expensive initially than Vonage is, but with no monthly phone bill, Ooma pays for itself very quickly.