From: mariasophia@comprehension.com   
      
   Paul wrote:   
   > Make no mistake, this is an inferior service.   
      
   I agree with Paul, but a LOT depends on the jitter in your net connection.   
    '   
    Press "GO" and you get...   
     1. Download speed   
     2. Upload speed   
     3. Ping   
     4. Jitter   
    ... to Oooma's Palo Alto server farm.   
      
   That's important.   
   Especially the jitter!   
      
   Ask me how I know that...   
      
   With Ooma, the box connects to your router and you can walk around the   
   house with a "real" cordless phone and talk in any room to that Ooma.   
      
   I dropped Ooma about a year or so ago because they taxed it to death (IMHO)   
   and because I ended up using Google Voice (which is not taxed) more often.   
      
   But they're not the same thing.   
      
   I had the set of Oooma's that Costco sold for years, as I gave them as   
   stocking stuffers. I picked the cheapest location in the USA (I think it   
   was in Kansas) for the taxes, and paid that for something like a decade.   
      
   But I'm on WISP, and the jitter is about 15ms which doesn't affect most   
   things but it definitely isn't something the Ooma server in Palo Alto   
   liked.   
      
   So half my phone calls were garbled, but the other half were perfect.   
   But then I moved over to Google Voice and now it's about 95% are good.   
      
   What does Ooma give you over Google Voice?   
   a. both have free phone calls to/from the USA   
   b. both allow you to pay pennies per minute to outside the USA   
   c. one runs on a "real phone" while the other runs on a computer   
      
   I don't use bluetooth when I'm using Google Voice on an iPad, but with a   
   bluethooth headphone (or earbuds) you can walk around the house & talk.   
      
   So here's my advice.   
    A. If your connection has jitter less than about 5ms, Ooma will work.   
    B. Otherwise, just use a free service such as Google Voice is.   
    C. Ooma will cost you about five bucks a month though (in taxes).   
   --   
   I love how they tax a free service to death like they tax all else.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)