ObiTalk Review: Keep Your Landline With Zero Monthly Cost

 

I don’t know about you, but I got pretty tired of paying north of $50/month for a phone service that I only received telemarketer calls on.

I know what you’re saying; Dude – ditch the landline and go with your cell phone.

We have for the most part, but there are times where a landline comes into play:

1. When you need to reach the babysitter and he/she is not answering their cell phone
2. Those times you are working from home and you don’t want to use your cell (or you need another phone line)
3. Or perhaps when you are tired of talking to your friend, you can call your cell from the landline and tell them you have to drop for another call

Well, there’s a new toy on the market called the ObiTalk. My ObiTalk review will show you how to ditch your landline forever.

You that you can set up a new landline (or even port your existing landline number) in less than 20 minutes with something called the ObiTalk Obi200. How much is this going to cost me? A one time cost of under $50, provided you already have a phone to use.

Keep your landline with no monthly cost – forever! On with my ObiTalk review!

 

ObiTalk Review: ObiTalk Obi200

What’s the solution – one word – ObiTalk. Ok, it’s really two words – ObiTalk Obi200!

ObiTalk offers a simple solution for VoIP (voice over IP). It simpler terms, use the Internet to place or receive calls.

ObiTalk offers a product called the Obihai Obi200 in a few different configurations. It’s a very simple telephone adapter that plugs into your Internet Router and then to your phone. Done. Instant landline with no monthly cost.

The product I purchased was the [easyazon_link identifier=”B00BUV7C9A” locale=”US” tag=”c0b7ba-20″]OBi200[/easyazon_link], and you can purchase this for $49 at Amazon. Attach the included ethernet cable from your existing router to the OBi200, plug the phone connection from your phone, add plug in the power cord.

Follow the included quick start guide, and you’ll have you new phone set up in a manner of minutes.

There is one downside.

You need Internet service for this solution to work. Probably not a big deal, since pretty much everyone has that. But it is important to understand that if your Internet connection goes out, so does your phone.

Setting Up A Free Line With The ObiTalk OBi200

Once you have your connections in place, you can actually start to make and receive calls with one caveat.

You can only place and receive calls with the OBiTalk network, using the number that was included with the device. This will allow anyone with an Obihi device to call you, or they can use the iPhone or Android app’s from Obitalk to do the same. Not the best solution, but I guess it could work for some people given their situations.

Don’t fret just yet, you can still set up an actual phone number, so the device will act as a normal POTS service. You’ll just have to go through a few additional steps.

Using Google Voice with the ObiTalk Obi200

In order to set up a real phone line, you’ll need to create a Google Voice account. It’s pretty straight forward to set up an account, and you have the option to select a new phone number or have an existing number ported over to Google Voice.

Make sure you’ve established your Google Voice account before you finish configuring the OBi200 via the OBiTalk website (following the instructions in the quick start guide). I had a bit of a problem with OBiTalk trying to configure my Google Voice line, when in actuality I hadn’t even established my number yet.

Conclusion

It took me all of 20 minutes to unbox the Obi200 device, hook it up, and configure things until I had an active phone line.

I’ve made a number of test calls to and from the new line on different days and times to ensure the service was always active, and I haven’t experienced any issues to date.

Call quality is perfect, very similar to what I had with Xfinity and their VoIP service.

Total cost:

$48 – OBi200

Monthly cost to maintain the service:

The best part of this ObiTalk review is the monthly cost:

$0 / zero / nada / free

Where can you get the ObiTalk? Amazon of course (just click the image below):

[easyazon_image align=”center” height=”112″ identifier=”B00BUV7C9A” locale=”US” src=”http://www.craigerson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/31WOGWjJGL.SL160.jpg” tag=”c0b7ba-20″ width=”160″]