magicjack?

[Dave Brandt]

Anyone using or familiar with magicJack? I'm tired of paying $80 a month for a home phone (includes long distance). They have it on TV right now (supposedly) for $3.33 a month!

[Lance Norris]

It takes a computer as Im assuming its a VOIP.

[Brent Leonard]

Do a youtube search.

I watched a series (three I think) of videos by a guy who chronicled the entire process of hookup and use, then his overall review.

I'll let you decide, but the products performance was not pretty!

[Dave Lehnert]

This is second hand info so check it out. But I heard your phone number IS NOT a local number so anyone who calls you will have to do so long distance.(thats how they make money) However your long distance calls are included in the monthly rate.

[Robert Parrish]

I use mine as a second phone line everyday. It was a simple USB install. You do need a high speed internet connection. It has a lot of the features that my cable phone has. I am using it with a Mac with no problem.

[Josh Reet]

A buddy of mine has it and says it sucks. Works badly and they can't rely on it as a main communication system. But it is cheap and when it's working they can use it for long conversations with family.

We have vonage at the house, and for $25 a month it works pretty well. It does require that you already have high speed internet. But if you've already got that, the savings from $80 to $25 is pretty good. Plus, they even have a 911 system that works pretty well as far as passing on your location to the emergency crews. Something that I seriously doubt magicjack offers.

[Mike Null]

I've had mine for about 4 months and find it to be quite good. I've had a couple of disconnects but not often. It is a usb type device which plugs into your pc. It is only on when the pc is on. It is 19.95 per year and 19.95 for the usb connector. All your domestic calls are free after that.

You can get a local number or any area code you want. You can also port your own number but it takes a little longer to do it.

It can work with your Outlook contact list so you don't have to re-enter phone numbers. It can also auto dial when you pull up the Outlook contact.

If you can get more for your money I'd like to know where. (This is a second line for me so I don't interfere with my wife's use of the primary line, which she considers hers) I would use MagicJack as my primary service except that you cannot hook extensions to it.

MagicJack does offer 911 service.

[Jason Roehl]

I've got one, and I'm not impressed. Ours is real spotty. One end of the conversation will be crystal clear, while the other gets about 50% of it in 1/2-second pulses.

Not all numbers are local. I live in Lafayette, IN, but they don't yet offer Lafayette exchanges, so anyone making a call to me would have to pay long distance charges (unless they have a phone with free long distance, like a cell phone). My number is an Anderson, IN exchange, but all outgoing calls within the U.S. are free. It does come with one free number change, so if they do offer a Lafayette exchange in the future, I will change the number.

There is no monthly charge--you pay for the dongle up front ($40 normally, sometimes you can get it for $20), then it's $20 per year after that.

I suppose I could probably play with the configuration of my system a bit and get it to work better (and I have an IT-experienced friend who offered to help), so I've not given up on it yet.

It also puts up an "always on top" splash screen when you boot up that stays up for much longer than it needs to load, so that is a little annoying, and I've heard it is not uninstall friendly (I haven't tried yet, but I've heard you have to do it manually, registry and all).

[Dave Brandt]

Thanks everyone! I wanted to use it as our only house phone (with several phones thoughout the house. Doesn't look like that'll work. I think I'll look into vonage.

[Ken Becker]

got mine hooked up to a cordless phone and it works great.

Also plugged it in to the wall phone jack to ring in the shop. I used existing phone wiring in home that is disconnected from phone company.

[mickey cassiba]

I've been using MagicJack for over a year, as the primary house phone. While it does hang a bit when running video games and such, I've no complaints. We use an out of state area code/number so LOML can communicate with her extensive extended family,toll free for them and us. Using with a vtech multiple handset rig and no problems.
Use cheap mobiles for local biz, also toll free.
Win-win for us.
Mickey

[Jason Roehl]

I forgot to mention that both my wife and I have cellphones, and the kids are always with one or both of us, so we really don't need a landline. However, the kids are getting older, and the time in near when we will be able to leave them home alone, at which point a phone in the house of some sort would be necessary. At that time, either the magicJack will have to work reliably, or I'll go to the next cheapest option which would be another cell line for another $10/month. If I do that, I may consider a device that hooks the cell phone to the house bell wiring, such as this:

http://www.phonelabs.com/prd05.asp

[Denny Rice]

Jason,

I was paying almost 100.00 am month for a land line with a long distance plan thru Verizon. About 6 months ago, the wife and I had had enough with Verizon as my phone just kept getting more expensive. My wife and I both got new cell phones and one for my son (we share 700 minutes a month for less than 65.00 a month). Free nights after 7 pm and weekends free.In the last 6 months w have not even come close to going over the 700 minutes. The cool thing about my wifes cell phone was we ported our home phone number to her cell phone, so we got to keep the phone number we have had for 25 years. Porting the phone number took about a week and Sprint did all the paperwork for free and did not charge for the porting either.:)

[Alan Trout]

I really like mine I have had it for about 6 month's. I only needed a land line for occasional fax but my occasional faxes are in excess of 30 pages so for the price it was a great deal. Overall well worth the $20 a year. Voice quality is pretty good and overall very satisfied. I purchased mine at Best Buy because if it did not work or I did not like it I could take it back and get a refund for 30 Days without any great hassle.

Alan

[Curt Harms]

Thanks everyone! I wanted to use it as our only house phone (with several phones thoughout the house. Doesn't look like that'll work. I think I'll look into vonage.

We bought a cordless phone setup. We kept our primary POTS setup (wasn't THAT confident in Vonage and also for 911 functionality.) Vonage uses a separate "box" so a PC doesn't need to be on in order to function. We have 4 or 5 2 line cordless phones. Line 1 is the POTS line, line 2 is the Vonage line. The phone base station does need to be near the router & Vonage adapter. The only time I've had trouble with Vonage is if I have a big download going on at the same time. We have a DSL connection running 2+Mb and had call quality issues with a big download. There may well be a way to tweak the router to give VoIP packets priority(QoS settings). Vonage requires 90k/sec (I think) so shouldn't require a super high bandwidth connection.

HTH

[Scott Donley]

A basic land line with NO long distance service is cheap here. (about 15.00 a mo.) I have started using Google Voice for my long distance calls. Free and works very good.

[Jerome Hanby]

Take a look at VOIPO before you pull the Vonyage trigger. Several of us here are being forced out by Callvantage and are doing VOIPO. Haven't received my equipment yet (ordered Yesterday). I was waiting on my buddy to get his in and be the guinea pig. Talke to him over tyhe connection and it sounds great. It's $15 a month (monthly) or about $9 a month (yearly).


Thanks everyone! I wanted to use it as our only house phone (with several phones thoughout the house. Doesn't look like that'll work. I think I'll look into vonage.

[Dave Wagner]

Check with your cable company, some offer digital phone with a package deal. We have the Time Warner ($25/month) unlimited calls and works really well!

However with any of these, if you loose your internet (ISP connection), you can loose your phone.

[Curt Harms]

.......
However with any of these, if you loose your internet (ISP connection), you can loose your phone.

That is true, which is one reason we've kept one POTS line. You also lose the VOIP if you lose electric power. The high speed connection to the house can be fine but if the PC/router/adapter don't have power it's still no-go. We have Verizon DSL and so far it's been excellent, very little down time. As long as you have a cell phone that works at home, losing the internet connection or power is less of an issue.

[Jerome Hanby]

That is true, which is one reason we've kept one POTS line. You also lose the VOIP if you lose electric power. The high speed connection to the house can be fine but if the PC/router/adapter don't have power it's still no-go. We have Verizon DSL and so far it's been excellent, very little down time. As long as you have a cell phone that works at home, losing the internet connection or power is less of an issue.

Wont help indefinitely, but a small UPS is pretty cheap and can keep your Broadband modem, VOIP adapter, and cordless phone base running for a good while. I hooked one up slightly incorrectly to back up our Directivo and discovered that it would run the big screen TV and DVD player for about 20 minutes :D

[Josh Reet]

Thanks everyone! I wanted to use it as our only house phone (with several phones thoughout the house. Doesn't look like that'll work. I think I'll look into vonage.

As I said earlier, Vonage has been good for me. Between the cell phones and Vonage, I haven't had a time (including cable HSI and power outages) when I wished I had a land-line.

However, be sure to look into whatever is being offered. I hear Vonage has a contract now that you have to sign into for a year. And there are other companies offering VOIP service that might be a better fit. Including, as has been mentioned, your local cable or DSL provider.

In fact, the other month both Comcast and Verizon were offering $100/mo bundles with cable/internet/phone that included a free little netbook with a 1 or 2 year commitment. Not bad. I would have switched if I wanted to fight the "I'm an existing customer but I want new customer pricing" battle or wanted to go through the trouble of switching from cable-modem to FIOS.

[Bob Rufener]

A friend of mine is married to a Thai girl and they go back to Thailand for about 3-4 months each year. He called me the other day using this system and it worked well. Sound quality was good with no cutting out at all. He has a laptop that he hooks up with a wireless signal. I believe he said it cost less than $20 for the year. He said he has trouble when calling his son in Florida as it cuts in and out but it may be due to the fact that his son has a cell phone and he called me on our land line. I guess, like most things, it has its plusses and minuses.

[Michael Weber]

Take a look at VOIPO before you pull the Vonyage trigger. Several of us here are being forced out by Callvantage and are doing VOIPO. Haven't received my equipment yet (ordered Yesterday). I was waiting on my buddy to get his in and be the guinea pig. Talke to him over tyhe connection and it sounds great. It's $15 a month (monthly) or about $9 a month (yearly).

Just looked at the Voipo web site. Pricing is not real clear. My understanding is the $15/$8.25 prices are limited time promotional until they get all bugs and problems of their system worked out. There is a price list posted in the FAQ of $21.95 per month, $99.00 Bi-Annually or $199 Annually. There is also a $3.00 charge per month for any of the plans for taxes and fees.

[Jim Barrett]

Old thread thought I would add to it. I disconnected my land line saving ~$50 a month. Increased my cellphone minutes and now have 5 numbers I can add for free calling.
I purchased the magicjack for $40 and installed it today which took about 5 minutes. Made a bunch of calls and it works fine. We have broadband service through Comcast. Will use primarily for outgoing calls and when i don't want to burn through my cell minutes with Verizon.

Jim

[Jerome Stanek]

I had one and it was spotty at best. At times it would work part of the time on some calls but when I tried calling home from any place it would drop calls and fade in and out.

[Dan Hintz]

I switched my business lines over to a VoIP system being offered by my brother (the only man I know who had a TelCo PBX and fiber directly into his home... 10+ years ago!). Works beautifully, costs about half what Verizon charges, and offers a boatload of features Verizon doesn't/can't offer (like individual call blocking, multiple mailboxes on a single line, etc.).

[Curt Harms]

Thanks everyone! I wanted to use it as our only house phone (with several phones thoughout the house. Doesn't look like that'll work. I think I'll look into vonage.

We had Vonage as a second # and long distance for a few years with no issues. At the time linksys was making an adapter that plugs into a router LAN port. I've also seen routers with Vonage built into the router. We had 2 line cordless phones and Vonage plugged into the second line jack of the base set. I didn't use Vonage as the primary phone # because I wasn't sure about the reliability of 1)Vonage and 2)the broadband internet connection. I needn't have been concerned; both were quite reliable. The only service interruptions we experienced is when the router would lock up. No dialtone---what?? Unplug the router, wait a few seconds and plug it back in and the Vonage dialtone was back. That router got replaced.

There are also VoIP providers beside Vonage but I have no experience with them. With Magic Jack you have to have a PC on anytime you want phone service. I didn't care for that idea; others are fine with it. Vonage has a couple other tricks that may or may not matter. If you have reason to call internationally Vonage can be a LOT cheaper than Ma Bell depending on your plan. Another trick is if you want a phone # with a different area code/prefix. For example, you have a lot of family in another area code. You could have a # that is local for them.