I rarely use a land line, all my phone conversations are usually on my cell phone, but I do feel it’s important for some reason to still have a land line.  If anything, that’s the number I give out when I fill out forms.  I rather give out that number because if it somehow ends up in the telemarketers hands, then I don’t have to worry about  losing minutes on my cell phone.

I’ve been a Vonage customer for the past five years, paying about $20-$25 dollars a month, and have been happy for the most part.  The Vonage adapter I use to plug into my router just died, and I recently replaced it with a new one.  But . . . .

Today I was looking at the Fry’s ad¹ and came across an ooma² box.  I didn’t have a clue what it was, but quickly found out that it’s very similar to Vonage.  It’s an adapter you plug into your router that gives you a land lane and the most common features, but here’s the kicker, it’s all free.  They make their money off the box and added services, services I would pay for.  And it’s nothing like that MagicJack you’ve seen in the commercials.  Heck, I wouldn’t touch MagicJack in a million years, but ooma looks promising.

Best Buy sells ooma for $229, but Fry’s is selling it for $150.  It’s refurbished, but I buy refurbished stuff all the time and have never had a problem.³

ooma’s website offers a bunch of information, but I found this article comparing ooma and Vonage very interesting.  Also, the reviews on Best Buy and Amazon are pretty positive.⁴ I think my biggest concern is that the company seems to be a start-up, and I wonder if they can stay afloat.  But being in a recession and all, and not having to pay for a land line, this product just might be the thing for those of us living through the recession.

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^{1.  Fry’s is an large electronics store, and every Friday they put out a rather large ad in our local paper that geeks like me like to read.  When I worked at Fidelity, WifeGeeding II use to see us passing the ad around from guy to guy and she would say rather loudly that we are looking at “tech porn.”  That line, while rather funny, was always a bit tense as we had a manager that was pretty conservative and by the book.  Not to mention, I was always afraid someone would just hear the word “porn” and just assume I was a perv.}

^{2.  The correct spelling of ooma is with a lower case “o” per an article I read and their website.  I feel I needed to note that so you don’t think I’m a goof.  Well, you probably already think I’m a goof, and already know I’m not the best with grammar or spelling, but I just wanted to make it clear that this one time I didn’t goof.}

^{3.  Are rescue dogs considered a refurbished product?  I say yes, and in that case, I’m a proud owner of two refurbished dogs.}

^{4. When it’s time to buy something, especially electronics, I always read the reviews on Amazon and other like website.  The reviews are quite insightful at times.  Sometimes I also check out a site called epinons.com.}