Wanting to change cable and need a VOIP option

Wow, another post from me....

So, I have Xfinity for internet and phone... it has gotten CRAZY expensive and they are not willing to drop their charges....

I am looking at going to T-Mobile 5g or a new company putting fiber in our neighborhood called Ezee.... 1 gig for $69, which is faster and cheaper than what I have now...

But, I would like to keep my old land line and would like some options... I know there is Ooma but would like to see if there is something else out there that might be good... I would probably get the one that works with wi-fi as I do not know what Ezee or T-Mobile has to plug things in...

If you know of another internet option I would look at that also.

we use blackjack. I "think" we're on a 3 year subscription, but it could have been an annual renewal...just not sure. I want to say it was fifty bucks a year. simple box that gets plugged into the router, and the phone plugged into the blackjack box. we were able to port our number.

One nice feature is that it has built in call spam protection. the caller is prompted to enter a number before the call goes through. no more automated calls.

This may not help, but we are able to have two phone numbers on an iPhone with Verizon. We ported our former house phone number to my iPhone.

Kings over Queens said:

we use blackjack. I "think" we're on a 3 year subscription, but it could have been an annual renewal...just not sure. I want to say it was fifty bucks a year. simple box that gets plugged into the router, and the phone plugged into the blackjack box. we were able to port our number.

One nice feature is that it has built in call spam protection. the caller is prompted to enter a number before the call goes through. no more automated calls.

Click to expand...

Do you mean Magic Jack?

^ yes. I just wanted to make sure you were paying attention. lol

I can't tell you how many times I've called it blackjack and my wife has corrected me.

Texas Proud said:

Wow, another post from me....

So, I have Xfinity for internet and phone... it has gotten CRAZY expensive and they are not willing to drop their charges....

I am looking at going to T-Mobile 5g or a new company putting fiber in our neighborhood called Ezee.... 1 gig for $69, which is faster and cheaper than what I have now...

But, I would like to keep my old land line and would like some options... I know there is Ooma but would like to see if there is something else out there that might be good... I would probably get the one that works with wi-fi as I do not know what Ezee or T-Mobile has to plug things in...

If you know of another internet option I would look at that also.

Click to expand...

If you want a totally free option (after porting fees) that's worked for me for over 13 years now you might want to port your landline number to Google Voice as a personal (not business) number. They only accept cell numbers to you port it to a $5 Tello cell plan for a couple of days then port it on to Google voice. I think Google charge $20 and there is no more cost after that. The way it works is that you can load the GV app onto as many cellphones as you want to be able to pick up calls on from including an old one that's just laying in a convenient area in the house to serve as a landline. It's great to also be able to pick up these calls when you're not home. So you will have 2 dialers on your cell, the green one is Google Voice calls and the other is your regular cellphone number calls. It no longer works with old landline phones since Polycom no longer supports the Obi box that enabled that process. At this time my Obi still works on my landline phone but at some point a GV software will break it and I will only have answering in the phone app option as well. Here is a good video that explains the process and once you pay Google the number is yours forever at no monthly cost to you.

Google voice is a great option, if they will port. In our case, they said it was not possible and I tried on and off for 5 years. I switched to voip.ms . I pay $2.35 per month (.85 cents for the line and 1.50 for e911). I also pay per min incoming and outgoing, but it is a low use line (they do have unlimited options).

You also need and adapter like this, voip.ms has a tutorial on the setup

We're on Ooma at both the lake and the city homes. IIRC I bought the Ooma interface boxes (hard wired Cat 5 BTW) for something like $20 each on eBay. It's been several years with both and problems are zero. In the city I pay a little bit extra for premium service and for that (IIRC) I get the call filtering. For the first couple of years I used the inbound caller IDs to build a list of acceptable inbound callers. After that, I just hit the switch to route unknown inbounds to VM. It works great.

I have avoided Google Voice because Google has a habit of offering free services and subsequently shutting them down. I do use Google FI, but that is a paid service so I am more optimistic about its longevity.

Porting depends on your current telephone company. Most major ones will port, but the local co-op phone company that serves the lake house does not have that feature available. So we did have to get a new number with them.

I did Magic Jack for 5 years at like $100 in a deal. Confirmed it even does faxes.

foxcreek9 said:

Google voice is a great option, if they will port. In our case, they said it was not possible and I tried on and off for 5 years. I switched to voip.ms . I pay $2.35 per month (.85 cents for the line and 1.50 for e911). I also pay per min incoming and outgoing, but it is a low use line (they do have unlimited options).

You also need and adapter like this, voip.ms has a tutorial on the setup

Amazon.com

Click to expand...

Did you port to Tello first? That was the key to it working for me.

momoney said:

Did you port to Tello first? That was the key to it working for me.

Click to expand...

No, but when my credit runs out at the end of the year I will give that a shot.

momoney said:

Did you port to Tello first? That was the key to it working for me.

Click to expand...

Actually, just checked if I could port my Tello number I have now, GV says "Sorry, Voice doesn't port numbers from your carrier or your number's exchange." Tried my wife's Red Pocket phone number, same error. So it appears they do not support our Area Code (which has a population of 1.1 million).

Another long-term Google Voice user here, I second the nomination. I don't even know my actual Verizon number and am very glad that it changes every time I get a new phone. Why? Because it takes the robo-dialers a few months to realize your new, working Verizon number. I always know when I can avoid a call because it comes in on the Verizon number. Very, very few robo calls on my GV number, their antispam for calling seems to work great.

I've used MagicJack for years. It did stop working with the handset equipment when I upgraded my Google Fiber router but they have an iPhone app. I almost like that better since I can screen calls and it keeps potential spam calls off my iPhone number. When a business insists on a phone number and I suspect it will be put into a marketing database or used to otherwise pester me, they get the MagicJack number. The app also accepts text messages.

Thanks for the info....

I am trying to avoid a cell phone option as I do not like the voice quality of cell phones...