Toshiba Phone System

Have any one tried the VOIP phone system?

I try to boycott AT & T and look for other alternative phone. Someone recommend us to get the OOMA TELO phone from Costco or other retail place for less than $200. The way i look at it, we can pay them off in less than a year, compare to AT&T monthly charge. However, i wonder if there is any down side to this alternative: can you use fax with it....ect... Thank you for a well research & experience anwser

Public Comments

1. You can't fax but. Magic Jack is great for the money It's as cheap as it can get. I've used it for more than a year. IMHO it's great value.You can't beat free long distance anywhere in Canada or the U. S. It's a real money saver and works very well. although occasionally you may get a dropped call or minor interference, dropped calls are few and far between. The only time in my experience it isn't really good and you get a lot of interference is if you are burning a DVD or cd.Several friends and relatives have also bought it and we are all extremely satisfied. Although I turn my computer off at night, calls are still answered and I receive the messages from the server the next time I boot up. http://www.magicjack.com/5/index.asp The 1st year it costs you 40.00U.S. from then on $20.00 per year. In Canada where I live it's $50.00 the first year which includes buying it plus$10.00 for a Canadian area code, the 2nd year it's half. A suggestion. Buy it from a local retailer, try it out, if it doesn't suit return it to the retailer for a refund. If you buy online or from an info commercial and run into a problem it may take some time to get a refund from magic jack. By mistake I triple ordered using the info commercial and although they advertised that charges wouldn't be processed for 30 days my visa card was charged immediately. I returned the 2 extra magic jacks for a refund but it took more than a month to get the credit.
2. When you have any voip it runs through your internet service. If your internet is disconnected or goes out the phones will not work properly or not at all. The battery backup may not always work on your modem either. Many people go to voip because it is cheaper. The reason this is so is because the fcc regulation are more lenient on voip so the taxes can differ from state to state, with a regular land line it is more expensive because you are paying for the up keep of the line itself and of course taxes. I do not know were you live but I live in florida and with the way we have hurricanes your land line is the last thing to go because it is underground and voip usually goes when the internet and tv go. I have had both land line and voip and due to the weather in my area Id much rather have the land line even though it cost more. Then again this is only my opinion.
3. can not reliably fax with any VoIP provider... OOMA's "free lifetime" phone service is not so free... it only included domestic calling - not international... most of the features that you may want to use for their service is not included with the free service, you would need to pay $125 per year for the premier service... even if you opt for the "free" service, you would have to pay about $12 or so per year for taxes and fees... i would recommend the OOMA over the magicjack, because it does not require your PC to be on to work, like the magicjack does... BUT over OOMA and magicjack I would recommend Vonage... comparing vonage pricing to OOMA premier it would take over 1 1/2 years for ooma to just break even with vonages service, and vonage included international calls to over 60 countries.... i go into better detail comparing ooma and vonage here http://nyphonejacks.blogspot.com/2009/12/vonage-vs-ooma.html
4. There are good and bad VoIP phone system provider. Check the following providers: Lingo Nextiva Packet8 RingCentral ViaTalk Vocalocity VoIP.com Vonage
5. VoIP works, well. However, one of our services is to go into customers and analyze why their data worked well, but it comes apart when you add VoIP. Most data is "better late than never", however voice is "better never than late". So if your Internet connection is not the best then you will not like VoIP at all as you will get a lot of echo, dropped calls and dropouts in conversation. If it is okay then it may fall apart when you add VoIP. I might recommend trying it for a while before you drop your land line. If it works then make the switch, but if it does not then your do not have the expense of re-installing your land line.
6. Yes, a VoIP phone system is suitable for small to medium sized business. The only downside with VoIP phone system and other phone system is that they relies on the quality and speed of the internet. If the internet failed your phone system will fail also.