Q: How many handsets are included with the Ooma Telo Air 2 system?

A: The Ooma Telo Air 2 system comes with two HD3 handsets.

Q: Can I block unwanted calls with this system?

A: Yes, you can block telemarketers and spam calls by purchasing the Ooma Premier service plan for $9.99 per month.

Q: Does this system include an answering machine?

A: Yes, the Ooma Telo Air 2 has answering machine features, including a built-in speaker and one-touch access to voicemail.

Q: What is the advantage of location-based 911 calling?

A: With location-based 911 calling, emergency services will automatically receive your registered address when you dial 911 from your Ooma line.

Q: What is the benefit of the Bluetooth pairing feature?

A: The Bluetooth pairing feature allows you to answer incoming mobile calls from any phone in your home, even if your cell phone is charging.

Q: So you just purchase the phone and there are no monthly fees and you just connect it to your own WiFi? How do you get a phone number?

A: They charge you taxes and fees every month, something like $5 or $6 depending on where you live. You have to give them a credit card number to activate the service and get a phone number assigned. They assign you a phone number immediately, but you get to pick the area code. Then for about $40 you can port an existing number, which takes a few days. If you pay them an additional $120 plus tax per year, they don’t charge the $40 porting fee, you can keep both your ported number and the original number they assigned to you, and you get a bunch of other features like deciding what calls to block and forwarding calls to other phones like your cellphone. Those features seem to give you more flexibility than phone service from the local phone company or cable company. I got one of these for my mother 2-1/2 years ago, and I pay the $120 + tax per year (plus the $5 or $6 per month). I have set the call blocking feature to send all calls from numbers that are not in her contacts to voicemail. That way she does not get calls telling her her grandson is in jail somewhere in the Caribbean and she needs to send money to get him out. We monitor her voicemail and add any numbers to contacts if she gets a call from a friend whose number is not in there. We also add any numbers from solicitation calls to a blocked number list, at which point they don’t even go to voicemail — they just hear a recording that says they have been blocked. Ooma sends an email for every voicemail, and you can just click on the attachment and listen to the voicemail right then and there. I just bought another one for our vacation house. Now I can take it back and forth so I always have that phone with me. You just have to plug it into a laptop to connect it to your local Wi-Fi (or plug it in if you are not connecting wirelessly). Also by the way, you do not have to buy their phone. You can just buy an Ooma device and plug in any phone. Bear in mind that there are two versions of it, one which needs to be plugged in to the Internet, and one which can connect wirelessly and is a little bit more expensive. If your Internet goes down, you have to unplug the Ooma (from electricity) and replug it in to recycle. It flashes blue if it is working and red if it is not working, so it’s very obvious. Also, there is an app you can put in your cell phone that tells you whether it is working and lets you add contacts, listen to voicemail and set blocking levels.

Q: So the base connects wirelessly to router, how are the phones connected? Phones have a wireless connection to the base station from different rooms or each phone needs an RJ11 phone cord that plugs into the base station or into a wall jack?

A: The wireless phones that come with the unit only needs an ac power outlet to keep the phone charged while in it's charging cradle. Once you get the base station set up you can then plug the phones and cradle anywhere in your home and get them linked to the base station. It takes a couple of minutes for the phone to establish the link and then update. You'll see a message on the face of the phone telling you it's updating, etc. After that, you can pick up the phone and push the talk button. You will get a dial tone! You're set. Oh, you can purchase more phones from Ooma and set up more extensions if you need too. I used to have about 4 or 5. Now I'm only using 3. Hope that helps. GeorgiaDad

Q: Is it the nightmare that it sounds like. You go from quick and easy set up to paying somebody in somewhere land money to keep your phone number yearly? I don't quite get it. Sounds a lot more complicated than it's made out to be. Can somebody simplify it?

A: So I switched from Verizon because they ended copper landline service in my area this December. I should have switched a long time ago but didn’t because I didn’t want to upgrade my home security system. Anyway, to get to the setup, it was pretty straightforward. I already have Comcast broadband internet so I unpacked the OOMA and plugged in an Ethernet cable from an unused port on my router to the Ethernet port labeled internet on the OOMA base station. I then followed the instructions in the QuickStart guide to use my computer (which is also connected by Ethernet cable to the same router) to setup the OOMA base and pick a phone number from the lists tat were displayed on screen. They also offer an app based method that uses Bluetooth to setup the OOMA base without any cables by connecting it to your home WiFi network but I didn’t bother with that. I did want to keep my old landline number so I followed their directions to put in an online request to have Verizon transfer it over. This does cost money. The $40 fee they charge for this is waived if you pay for 1 year of service up front. I found the charges to be clearly explained on their website. Ran into a small glitch with Verizon balking at the transfer for unclear reasons but I was able to clear it up with a single call to Verizon. So far so good and I actually save about $30 per month.