I am pretty much always looking into ways to save money and cut costs, especially when it comes to monthly bills.
Though I loved having a landline home phone, often preferring our home phone over a cell phone, I didn’t love the $30+ monthly phone bill, especially when we didn’t actually receive many calls.
That’s when I looked into Ooma Telo, a VoIP phone (Voice Over Internet Provider).
I decided the 4.3 out of 5 stars from more than 4,000 Ooma Telo reviews on Amazon, from real Ooma customers probably held some Klout, so I went ahead and bought an Ooma Telo home phone system back in 2013 and have enjoyed not having a phone bill ever since!
Ooma Telo Review
The Ooma Telo phone service works through your internet service provider (so you need to have internet access) and it is super easy to install: plug it in and go!
Plug the Ooma device into your modem or router (not your computer, which means you don’t have to have your computer on to receive or make calls: other VoIP require that).
You follow the easy instructions that come with it, and voila! A new phone service and no more phone bills!
Oh, and the Ooma does not slow down our internet speed either.
The Ooma Telo retails for $99.99 with free shipping on their website, but if you can order one from Amazon for only $79.99 still with free shipping.
You can buy an Ooma Telo phone from Best Buy, Walmart, and Amazon along with other electronic stores like Fry’s Electronics, TigerDirect.com, Newegg, RadioShack, Staples, and OfficeMax.
However, after the seemingly steep initial purchase cost, we have no longer had a home phone bill!
Each month we only have to pay a small tax fee, approximately $3-$5, which comes directly out of our checking account. No need to remember to pay our bill!
After only 5 months, we have recouped the initial cost of the device thanks to the savings! Now going forward we save around $30 a month from not having a phone bill!
You can also pick your own number (or transfer an existing one for a one time fee of about $35). Plus the Ooma Telo Home phone service comes with a built-in answering machine, the ability to have two phone lines, caller ID, and call waiting. It’s everything we had before in our landline home phone and then some!
The sound quality is crisp and clear, better in fact, that our old home phone service through AT&T or Comcast, which would sometimes make such loud static noises that I would have to hang up and call the person back because it was so bothersome!
With the Ooma that is gone, but it does occasionally make a beep sound, like someone’s on call waiting, and when I pull back to look at the phone, I find out that, no, my phone just made a momentary sound?! (Note, that was with the older model, the new one hasn’t done this ever.)
And occasionally people have a hard time calling our number and us calling certain numbers as well. Those are my complaints.
Overall, I am very happy we decided to buy an Ooma Telo system. The device can move with us to a new home and we’ll be able to keep our number.
Plus, we have no more phone bill to pay each month, freeing that money for Josh’s cell phone payment.
Have you ever checked out Ooma Telo reviews? What do you think of it? Do you even have a home phone?
Karen Dumont says
Hey Katie,
I have the Comcast triple play. It gives one (HUGE) price for home phone, Internet and cable TV. My husband says if I drop the phone(which I always want to do) our price will go up bc it’s a gimmick in the 1st place to get you to buy all 3. Do you have this issue? How did you get around it?
Katelyn Fagan says
We never pay for cable. We only have internet. The Triple Play (we have Spectrum internet) is hard. If you need cable, it could be saving you money… BUT we often find that if you just call in and ask for a special or a deal on internet (in our case) we can always get a better deal, especially if you call a few times, mention some competitors, and so on. But, they should have a combo deal for the internet and TV still, and for less money than the triple play.