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Ooma Hub Discontinued

Ooma sent me an email today notifying me that my wonderful Ooma Hub has been officially discontinued (see picture above). Ooma had previously created a new product called the Ooma Telo, but up until now, although you couldn’t buy a new Hub from their website, it was still supported.

Here is an excerpt of their email:

Having launched our second generation product, the Ooma Telo, in 2009 with higher-performance and more advanced functionality, we have now made the decision to concentrate our activities on the Telo going forward. Your Hub will continue to function on the Ooma network and operate as before, but we will not be providing any future enhancements and will be limiting our customer support activities going forward.

Basically, they are telling Hub owners that if their box breaks, they are S.O.L. and won’t be getting any help from their customer service. Frankly, I was wondering how much longer they were going to give me absolutely free phone service.

But it’s not all bad news. They did offer to sell me a Telo for $99, instead of their regular price of $149.99 with free shipping. If that wasn’t enough, they also thrown in a free Ooma Linx (a $49.99 value) which allows you to wireslessly connect additional phones.

ooma telo

The part they forget to mention is that when you switch over to the Telo, you also have to sign-up for their new service which makes you pay the Federal and local phone taxes. In Los Angeles, that comes to $4.04 per month, making the Ooma service no longer “free.”

oomataxes

Let me see. Pay $100 for a Telo, plus $4 per month or do nothing and pay absolutely nothing. I’ll pick the later, thank you. I’m going to ride my Ooma Hub until the wheels fall off.