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I had landline Verizon and slowly but surely they were changing their billing to add more charges for any little thing. My charges were in excess of $30 a month with NO long distance calls. I had just upgraded my Charter TV to add a 5MB Cable connection. In May of 2008 I ordered the MagicJack online by credit card and it arrived in about 3 days. It installed and I had my new telephone number within 1 hour. All calls within the US and Canada are free. I used MagicJack for about a month and was satisfied with the performance. I terminated Verizon. To date my savings are 12 months times $30 minus $20 for the MagicJack and $20 for the first year service. That is a $320 saving. I purchased the next 5 years of service for $60. That works out to be $1.00 a month for the next 5 years. The service has had some echo and voice quality problems that I think are related to my Cable service. I have monitored my line and I see the fluctuations, which coincide with the bad quality. I had one occasion in which my MJ failed to install. I contacted their On-Line customer Service and was back within one hour. member for 17.3 years, 118 visits, last login: 9.7 years ago lodged 14.6 years ago
I use magicjack when I travel to Canada for work. $20 a year to stay in touch with family and friends in the US. member for 22.4 years, 5831 visits, last login: a few hours ago lodged 14.6 years ago
Best $20.00 I ever spent inside the US! member for 23.5 years, 522 visits, last login: 11.8 years ago lodged 14.6 years ago
I purchased magicjack and have been pleased with it. I gave up my landline many years ago and have been a customer of Vonage, Sunrocket, ViaTalk, and now MagicJack. I've had MJ for 9 mos and just re-upped for 5 more years ($60). I plugged it in and it simply works on a Vista 64 PC connected via Comcast HSI. magicjack does not have all the bells and whistles as some of the other voip services, but for what I use it for it's fine. My cell is my primary line, but often my house does not have good cell reception so MJ fits in quite nicely as an inexpensive alternative. The longest call I've made using MJ was about an hour and it was flawless. No echo, no delay. I would really like MJ to add an auto call forwarding that would send your calls to another number if your PC is off or the magic jack is not plugged in. As it is now, you have to manually set up forwarding otherwise the calls just go to voicemail. It really is a good service and is so cheap I can see why some people are suspicious that it's a scam. All I know is so far I've paid about 1/4th of what my previous voip services were (that number gets better as months go on) and am having good calling experiences using MJ and a regular cordless phone. And if I do decide to cancel service in the future, I don't need to mess around with returning any equipment to them. member for 20.5 years, 126 visits, last login: 14.6 years ago lodged 14.6 years ago
UPDATE 05/15/2009 - Still good quality after 6 weeks. Same quality as when I took it out of the box and installed it. Call quality is great, absolutely no problems. If you're tech challenged, it might not be for you since it does require a HEALTHY computer. If you download heavily, MJ is not for you. For most "nerds" like myself, its just fine. As for phone number selection, not very many good choices, but I can tolerate it... for the time being. Web site sucks, not much functionality, but again, I can live with it. 04/01/2009 Decided to give it a try after watching all of the damn commercials. Easy to setup, but wasn't able to get a local number in my area (received a number from a town 80 miles away), but I can live with it. First person I called was someone in Chicago and they were amazed at the call quality. Worth the cost of finding out if its right for you ! member for 16.6 years, 2807 visits, last login: 6.9 years ago updated 14.7 years ago
For the money you can't beat it. I have a local number and can bring it anywhere I have a high speed connection. The quality can be sketchy at times and I did go a week where I couldn't make any calls but over all its not bad. I don't use it as much as I should but I think I have got my monies worth. Makes a great gift. member for 16.7 years, 459 visits, last login: 11.2 years ago lodged 14.7 years ago
I ordered a MagicJack on 7/3/2008 and it arrived Tuesday the 8th. It took about 2 minutes to set up and it was working. I set it up with an additional pair of 5.8GHz cordless phones next to our existing landline phones. I've tested it on several computers, including a Dell Inspiron laptop connected via wireless and an old Dell Dimension 4100 [USB1 ports] and a USB2 non-powered hub. I ended up hosting the MJ on an Inspiron 8100 with a USB2 card and a powered USB2 hub that I put in a corner of the computer room. My dedicated computer uses about 60 watts of power. I'm looking for a laptop with a broken display so that I can lower that figure. MJ generally works flawlessly. Once in a while, there's some choppiness or echo, but restarting the MagicJack and redialing fixes this problem. My wife has used it quite a bit to call relatives in the Midwest and is very happy with it. It's paid for itself many times over. We've used MagicJack for a year now. The call quality is good about 99% of the time. It's choppy about 1% of the time. For under $2 a month, I can redial when i get a choppy connection. Around the end of 2008, MJ experimented with time limits on outgoing calls. The initial 30-minute limit caused quite a few people to stop using MJ. After a lot of customer complaints, the limit was relaxed to 1 hour, then to an hour and 59 minutes. If you actually talk that long, just redial your call if it's dropped. RE: CALL QUALITY: The lower your latency is, the better MJ will work. That's why people with good cable or higher tiers of DSL have better luck with MJ than people with bad cable or slower/problematic DSL. I really don't care that it doesn't have a number local to my area, since I intended it for outgoing calls only. The website looks like an ad for a bad used-car lot. Ignore it and research the facts [both good and bad] before deciding whether or not this is for you. As for the fine print in the EULA, I don't care about targeted advertising when it's confined to the softphone and the softphone is non-intrusive. If you use MJ on a dedicated computer stuffed into a corner somewhere, you won't see the ads anyway. I set it up with the free trial period, so I'll report back on whether I'm billed before the website said I would be billed. UPDATE 7/7/2009: I wasn't billed before the trial period was over. I've renewed my service for another year @ $19.95/yr. [that's the $1.68/month quoted in the infamous commercials]. I haven't had to deal with tech support in the year I've used MagicJack. I hear that the only support available is overseas-based chat. member for 22.7 years, 10197 visits, last login: a few minutes ago updated 14.7 years ago
Ordered on line thru their site. The unit was delivered in about 2-3 days. Took me less than 5 minutes to set it up with voicemail. Haven't paid for a long distance / local call since. It's been about 3 months. I'm using comcast high-speed internet for the connection. Only downside is if you lose cable or power / you lose service. I'm keeping AT&T for now because of hurricane season. When season ends, plan on "suspending" AT&T service. You can do this for up to 9 months for a one time charge of $20. This allows you to keep you landline phone number. I make most Long distance calls on Cell anyway. I figure it costs me $31 per month just to have a landline phone which I rarely use. $20 per year vs $31 per month a no brainer. member for 14.8 years, 1 visits, last login: 14.5 years ago lodged 14.8 years ago
well now, it has been almost a year since i first got the magic jack and despite some early teething pains, i have been quite pleased with it......i can call mum who is in a 607 area code and my best bud in canada in a 902 area code and not have to worry about a nasty phone bill every month.....some had probs with being cut off after an hour or two, but i was fortunate and did not have that occur....as of this writing, i am on v 5.1.2535.0 and it seems to be doing ok.....it will be coming due in a month or so and if it continues this good, i will re-up for another year.....i am satisfied (and no, i am not an employee of MJ nor do i have stock in the company ) ps-have not had to deal with tech support, thankfully member for 19.2 years, 45 visits, last login: 13.8 years ago updated 14.8 years ago
Got my MagicJack in November 2008. I use it in conjunction with GrandCentral. That setup seems to work quite well. A few things: - I do use it as my primary line. I personally hate to talk on the phone and don't use the phone much. - It's CHEAP!!!! $1/month for voice service?!? Yes, that's what it costs!!! Signed up for 5 years for $59.95 - You do get what you pay for. Sure it works. Is it as good as POTS...well no but it does work. - Your PC must remain on. I connected it to my server which is on 24/7 so no big deal there for me. - Had to do this fix to get caller ID working on my handset. »www.magicjacksupport.com ··· html#785 But it now works - If you are a geek and like to play, this is a device that could use some TLC. member for 22.2 years, 12064 visits, last login: a few hours ago updated 14.9 years ago
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