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magic jack phone recommendation

We've been paying around $80 month for traditional landline home phone plus DSL @ 2.5 MB speed for several years. I must admit there are some old habits at work here which has me seeking to keep a landline, but not for what it's costing us. We don't subscribe to pay TV (an antenna on the roof coupled with a Tivo works very well here), so the bundles the cable and U-verse folks offer mostly don't help us.

Still when it came right down to it, there were two reasons for having a landline. 1) The alarm system needs a analog line to call the monitoring center & 2) our cell coverage in the house is spotty. The alarm company didn't have a good IP interface for our system, but GSM cellular seems to work, so we put it in. Works great & cost me $10 a month for that service & $200 for the hardware. Next, I took a chance and ordered the Magic Jack on a free 30 day trial to serve as a voice line. $50 with all the shipping, tax & 1st year service & I must admit I am surprised how well it works. I took it with me on the road last week using my laptop & a good wifi connection and it also worked great. The best part here is there are no minutes of use to keep track of like the cell plans, it's cheap & it works with the existing house phones (no headsets & sitting at a computer). Ended up upgrading to 5 years of service for $70 which breaks down to less than $2/month for phone service over that time, when you include the MJ purchase.

I understand MJ is rolling out the MJ+ "any day now". Unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show, it's supposed to plug into either a USB port or an ethernet port on your router so you don't have to leave your computer on all day & night for home service. I'll likely get one of these for the house when it rolls out and transfer service to it so we don't need to have the computer on.

The downside for us is they don't have the ability (yet) to transfer our old home number, & there is a slight delay (about 1/4 second) when talking over it, very much like a cellphone actually. I'm very impressed with this for the price. Now we are waiting for AT&T U-verse to install a 12 Mb connection to us. $149 install fee with some sort of rebate card to off set this & $29/month for the first year...$54 there after. All said and done it will take about a year to offset all the upfront costs, but we get more bandwidth at a lower cost and still have the services we want.
 
Phydeaux said:
Wow! That's a LOT of photos! How do you keep them organized? And you choose to offload them to a laptop vs. a portable HD?

Have you posted some to share?
Click to expand...

I download into file folders by date or location (or both) on my desktop. My two primary camera bodies are set up as A and B so the autofile numbering system prevents duplicate photo file names. (Learned that lesson the hard way one.) Once they are on my netbook, I can then view the larger images and start dumping the less than desirable images especially when working with the aurora or wildlife.

Sometimes, I start the post-processing on the images too. I never delete the original photo/file, adding notations such as cr (crop), rs (resize), br (add brightness) or ot (onetouch fix). I don't use my photomatix program on the road on the netbook.

I don't need another device hence the no HD for travel, because I do use the netbook for other things too (like travel writing/documenting the trip).

As for photos posted, yes, I have posted several here on TUG in the thread with all of the others folks have shared here.

Most of what I share (photos and travel writing) may be found on IgoUgo.com (link in my sig line here). I rarely post my best photos, however, anywhere on the internet :)

P.S. Sorry to have hijacked this thread.
 
Last edited:
Back on Topic - Magic Jack

Well nearly a monthly into it, we are still loving it. I especially like that I will be able to "call home" from Africa later this month, from my mini-netbook via the VOIP to my hubby at home.

We've only had one "quality" issue with echo on the call. Other than that one call, everything's been very good. +1 for Magic Jack!
 
UWSurfer said:
We've been paying around $80 month for traditional landline home phone plus DSL @ 2.5 MB speed for several years. I must admit there are some old habits at work here which has me seeking to keep a landline, but not for what it's costing us. We don't subscribe to pay TV (an antenna on the roof coupled with a Tivo works very well here), so the bundles the cable and U-verse folks offer mostly don't help us.

Still when it came right down to it, there were two reasons for having a landline. 1) The alarm system needs a analog line to call the monitoring center & 2) our cell coverage in the house is spotty. The alarm company didn't have a good IP interface for our system, but GSM cellular seems to work, so we put it in. Works great & cost me $10 a month for that service & $200 for the hardware. Next, I took a chance and ordered the Magic Jack on a free 30 day trial to serve as a voice line. $50 with all the shipping, tax & 1st year service & I must admit I am surprised how well it works. I took it with me on the road last week using my laptop & a good wifi connection and it also worked great. The best part here is there are no minutes of use to keep track of like the cell plans, it's cheap & it works with the existing house phones (no headsets & sitting at a computer). Ended up upgrading to 5 years of service for $70 which breaks down to less than $2/month for phone service over that time, when you include the MJ purchase.

I understand MJ is rolling out the MJ+ "any day now". Unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show, it's supposed to plug into either a USB port or an ethernet port on your router so you don't have to leave your computer on all day & night for home service. I'll likely get one of these for the house when it rolls out and transfer service to it so we don't need to have the computer on.

The downside for us is they don't have the ability (yet) to transfer our old home number, & there is a slight delay (about 1/4 second) when talking over it, very much like a cellphone actually. I'm very impressed with this for the price. Now we are waiting for AT&T U-verse to install a 12 Mb connection to us. $149 install fee with some sort of rebate card to off set this & $29/month for the first year...$54 there after. All said and done it will take about a year to offset all the upfront costs, but we get more bandwidth at a lower cost and still have the services we want.
Click to expand...

Updating our MJ/U-verse switching story a bit. I heard in the wind that some are using Google Voice (GV) as their primary number which in turn forwards to some or all numbers you want it to ring to (home, work, cell, MJ...whatever). So it was appealing to park the home number on Google Voice and direct it to ring on the Magic Jack, that way we retain our home number and am able to route to where ever we want it to go. One really nice feature of GV is to have voice messages transcribed automatically when left to us and have it send both e-mail & txt msgs letting us know we have a msg. The path to getting AT&T Landline to GV however required porting the land line to a cellphone and then from the cellphone to GV. I bought a $7 sim card from T-mobile (now free) with 10 minutes of prepaid phone service & borrowed someones tmobile phone they had in a drawer & ported the home number to it. Once successful I ported the number from T-mobile to GV for a $20 fee to GV. 24 hours later it's now all functioning.

Complicated? Yes. The break even point after investing in new hardware and services, approximately 13 months. But now we have home phone service, using the same number (inbound) we've always had and improved voice messaging for less money.
 
Pit said:
Use this together with Google Voice for totally free VoIP.

http://www.amazon.com/OBi110-Service-Bridge-Telephone-Adapter/dp/B0045RMEPI/ref=pd_cp_e_1
Click to expand...

I agree that this is MUCH Better than Magic Jack for home use (not for portable travel calls). Pay a one time $49.99 and all calls are free in the US and Canada until at least 2012 using google voice. International calls are 2 cents a minute. Some of the OBi110 Calling Features: Call Forward, Caller ID ? Name - Number, Anonymous Caller Blocking, Message Waiting Indication - Visual and Tone Based . Also you don't have to have your computer to use it, it plugs straight into your router. In addition you can plug it into your router and send the out line to your house phone jack and all of the jacks in your house will work. Your phones in the bed room, den, etc, etc will ring and dial just like you had AT and T land line service. Not as easy to set up as Magic Jack, but it works any time someone calls without being tied to a computer. It is a free phone system.
 
tombo said:
I agree that this is MUCH Better than Magic Jack for home use (not for portable travel calls). Pay a one time $49.99 and all calls are free in the US and Canada until at least 2012 using google voice. International calls are 2 cents a minute. Some of the OBi110 Calling Features: Call Forward, Caller ID ? Name - Number, Anonymous Caller Blocking, Message Waiting Indication - Visual and Tone Based . Also you don't have to have your computer to use it, it plugs straight into your router. In addition you can plug it into your router and send the out line to your house phone jack and all of the jacks in your house will work. Your phones in the bed room, den, etc, etc will ring and dial just like you had AT and T land line service. Not as easy to set up as Magic Jack, but it works any time someone calls without being tied to a computer. It is a free phone system.
Click to expand...

I think if I had to do it over again I might have gone that route. There are several unknowns with all these systems as to what and who the underlying phone carrier is behind these VOIP systems and whether they'll be around years down the line. At least MJ has a huge customer base. At this point I'm waiting for MJ+ to be made available so I can use it stand alone without the computer, then re-purpose the original MJ I have for travel &/or work.

Still all of this is pretty exciting for someone who administers phone systems for his employer, has been dealing with phone companies for 30+ years on the job and is the son of a 30 year employee of GTE.
 
Magic Jack -- Any Port In A Storm.

Verizon land line stopped working at our house yesterday. Plus, our Verizon Wireless cell phone is currently on the blink.

No idea what to do about the cell phone. Verizon's land-line repair people won't be here till Friday.

What to do till then ?

Answer: Don't get mad -- get Magic Jack.

We whipped right on over to Radio Shack & bought 1 of those just as soon as we thought of it. We hooked it up to the electric computer & activated it just as soon as we got back.

Result: Once again we can talk on the electric telephone, same as before except on a new phone number. In fact, The Chief Of Staff is having a nice telephone conversation right now.

Who'd a-thunk?

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 
It gets better too...

I'm using a MacBook Pro these days with the built in microphone and speakers which works GREAT with Google Voice, truly free calls without any signup fee's. It's a little weird just speaking into the computer screen, no headset, no additional software, but the calls are fine.

I noted in my last message I was waiting for MJ+ to come out. It did, I got it but was a bit disappointed that they wouldn't transfer the service I prepaid (5 years) from the old MJ to the new MJ+. Still, we're not talking about huge sums and the MJ+ works as advertised...plugging directly to the router leaving the computer out equation for the home service. Increasing our home ISP bandwidth was a really good move for us.

Now to find a use for the old usb port MJ with nearly 5 years of phone service still paid for. With GV working so well with the laptop I don't need MJ for travel. I was going to give it to my Mom to make free calls on, but so far she's not interested. I may end up using it at work before long. <g>
 
Internet speed requirements for MagicJack

Does anyone have a feel for the internet speed and ping test requirements needed for successful use of MagiJack? I was unable to get MagicJack to work in Curacao and Vienna this year, and I can't get it to work in Mexico now. Slow internet and poor ping test performance seem to defeat on-the-road use of MagicJack. Works great from home, though. And when it does work, it is very cost-effective on calls to overseas locations.
 
Don't Try To Call Me. I'll Try To Call You.

AwayWeGo said:
Verizon land line stopped working at our house yesterday. Plus, our Verizon Wireless cell phone is currently on the blink.
Click to expand...
Cell phone still not working.

Verizon land line is OK as of this morning.

Now we can use our Verizon line to call our Magic Jack phone & vice versa.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 
pjrose said:
SHOULD, yes, but whether I HAVE TO is the question. Whenever I close the lid of my laptop, MJ gets unhappy (or tells me when I get back on again). I usually don't bother to eject it, and it doesn't seem to be a problem.....
Click to expand...


Not a problem now but you will need to replace it much sooner than necessary if you keep doing it this way.
 
My computer group had a program on MJ and Skype recently.

Skype appears to be pretty much for people who want to go face-to-face on the computer. For that, it's good.

MJ now allows you to transfer your old number. It also plugs into the modem so you don't need to have your computer on. This is especially important as so many people are buying laptops or tablets rather than desktops. We currently have phone service with our cable provider. It works with a modem and, when you think about it, is not a lot different from MJ.

We have a home security system through a national provider and, for a few bucks more, have a backup that sends the alarm over a cellphone network in the event our primary phone line craps out. I would assume, in the event we drop the cable phone and go with MJ, this would either become the primary connection or the security service would have some way to connect with the MJ. These foks aren't dumb and know they need a way not to lose customers who decide to discontinue their landline.
 
I Think Of It As A Cell Phone But In Reality It's A Little-Bitty Pocket-Size Computer

AwayWeGo said:
Cell phone still not working.
Click to expand...
Cell phone is working again.

Not sure what was wrong with it.

Our son took the battery out & put the battery back in again.

After that, it powered up OK & once again is good to go.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 
Special Offer for mJ Users.

FYI, if you have been a loyal mJ user, keep an eye on the ad window of your mJ soft phone. It will offer you a chance to buy the new mJ+ for half price, $35. I ordered mine today, and during the process they offered extra ones for the same price, so I bought two of 'em. They put the offer up on different soft phones on different days, so keep an eye out. When it's your turn, the offer stays on all day, with no other messages cycling.

You will be able to use your original mJ phone number on the new mJ+, even as you continue to use the old one. Also, they have free apps to put on an iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, maybe Android stuff too. Those apps can ALSO have the same number. It makes the iPod Touch look like an iPhone, when you are in range of wireless Internet, yet you talk with US and Canada for free. :cool:

MagicJack merged with a company called Vocaltec, which claims to have invented Voice over IP. They make their own hardware and software, and they also built their own competitive local exchange companies. So they are the real deal. They offer exchange equipment to other providers. The trading symbol is CALL.
 
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