I'm not disagreeing with you that there may be better providers, but I did the math before I did anything and have been generally happy with the results. Please keep in mind not everybody is very technically inclined, and sometimes a main stream device / service that can be purchased at a local store and has a support phone number is all the difference. I didn't have an existing device, so spending the money for a proprietary Republic Wireless phone wasn't an issue for me. There are diminishing returns when you try to optimize something too far and spend more time researching it than necessary.
VOIPo? Support phone number and a preconfigured ATA. It's friggin plug and play. How is that magically more complex than Ooma? It's also cheaper for the first four years despite being nearly twice the monthly price! I can pretty much say the same thing about PhonePower, only you can
also buy the ATAs at Amazon and Fry's instead of ordering directly!
VOIP.ms, however? Yeah, you have to fill out a half dozen fields on an ATA, but they have excellent documentation and a literate monkey can do it. When you're only looking to spend maybe $20 in hardware and
maybe $2-3 a month (or likely far less), it's worth taking the extra few minutes to configure a device.
Also, again, thanks for proving my point with the Republic problems and how users turn a blind eye to problems that
no other mobile carrier has because *hand wave*. By the way, nice hypocrisy. "sometimes a main stream device / service that can be purchased at a local store and has a support phone number is all the difference" so let's defend Republic who has
neither, eh!?
I've done IT for a lot longer than you have and have specialized in the very things I speak of for nearly as long as you've been in IT. I know there's no magic one size solution, and the ones most frequently touted as such are often the worst of the lot. The point of the guide and my ongoing efforts to actually
help people with solutions best fit to
their needs is to help get them to the best, highest quality solutions without them having to do the research themselves. I also teach them a few basics so they can fend for themselves. I've done it for years. This is about helping people get the best options from the get go and not making poor decisions to go with sub-par providers before they spend penny one.
I'm not here to make people switch away from Ooma and Republic. You already made those mistakes, I'd rather see you ride out the service until equipment failure, bankruptcy, or frustration beyond the point of no return. It doesn't change reality, however. They're poor choices, and they shouldn't be recommended to others when there are superior options available with near, at or lower pricing. I can and have proven this with hard data time and again in this community, especially in regards to Ooma and Republic. Stop confusing your apparent (collective) need to defend your past poor choices when you're being called out for trying to perpetuate your poor choices with other people by recommending them as a superior option.
Other than the cost of a good headset six or seven years ago, Skype only costs me something like $0.02 a minute and no monthly minimum.
Again,
Localphone. One QUARTER the price per minute, no monthly minimum, just as easy to use. Larger device freedom, preconfigured software, and yet still no proprietary software lock-in.
