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lcompton
join:2008-05-04
Exton, PA
 ·Verizon Online DSL
3 edits |  magicJack Set To Become My Primary Home Telephone Service
Good evening.
Following is my take on my first several weeks with magicJack and where I am going from here...
BACKGROUND
magicJack has been running for about three weeks now on a Hewlett Packard T5710 Thin Client (setup as a dedicated magicJack telephony server). Overall, I am pleased with magicJack's performance.
Over the past couple of weeks I have updated my telephone number with friends and organizations with whom I do business and my calls now come through my magicJack. My Verizon service is essentially unused at this point.
Today I integrated the magicJack and telephony server into my central home telephone system and demoted the Verizon telephone service to one phone with no answering machine. This coming week, I will be canceling my Verizon home telephone service and reallocating the money saved by eliminating the telephone service to increase my Verizon broadband Internet connection rate. I've done a bit of analysis on the economics of this decision and I'll share my results here in case anyone else is weighing this strategy.
STRATEGY & ANALYSIS
First, let me take a moment to describe the level of Verizon telephone service that I have. The plan was Verizon's unlimited local calling service with no enhanced calling features of any kind. I had no long distance service on my Verizon telephone line and toll calls were about thirty cents/minute. Toll and long distance calls were handled through OneSuite at 2.5 cents/minute. I accessed OneSuite through a local access telephone number, which leveraged my unlimited local calling service through Verizon. This Verizon telephone service plan cost me approximately USD25.00/month. OneSuite toll/long-distance minutes were purchased in blocks of USD10.00 and good for six months before I would have to spend an additional USD10.00 to purchase more minutes and reactivate any remaining minutes I had from my previous purchases. So, at 2.5 cents/minute, I was spending about USD20.00/annum for 800 toll/long-distance minutes/annum. As you can see, I don't make a lot of toll/long-distance telephone calls.
So, using the numbers above, I was spending USD300.00/annum for Verizon basic telephone service with unlimited local calling. An additional USD20.00/annum purchased 800 toll/long-distance minutes to meet my needs. My total annual cost for telephony services was USD320.00.
Using the magicJack strategy, I now have:
• Unlimited local and toll/long-distance calling,
• Call forwarding,
• Caller ID,
• Call waiting w/Caller ID,
• Conference calling,
• Voicemail and
• Voicemails via e-mail as *.WAV files
for an initial capital investment of USD46.90 for the magicJack, which includes the magicJack device and the first year licensing fee at USD39.95 and a shipping and handling charge of USD6.95. An additional capital expense of USD71.00 (USD56.00 for the T5710 and USD15.00 shipping and handling) for the Hewlett Packard T5710 Thin Client was necessary in order to achieve 7 x 24 telephony service at home using a dedicated P.C. (without leaving a laptop or standard desktop computer on all of the time.) The Thin Client was won in an eBay auction making the cost of this hardware asset unpredictable. Because magicJack provides a POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) line interface, I am able to re-use my telephone equipment with magicJack. My total capital investment for my magicJack setup was USD117.90. The recurring cost for magicJack is USD19.95/annum at current market rates. Alternatively, there is a one-time reduced-rate option presently available to me at USD59.95 for a four-year license extension, which works out to just about USD14.99/annum for each of the four years in the extension period.
Earlier I mentioned that I will be reallocating the money saved on my monthly Verizon telephone service to increase my Verizon broadband Internet service rate. Let's have a closer look at this now. My present Verizon Internet access is their so-called Verizon DSL Starter Plan at USD14.95/month. The DSL Starter Plan provides data rates of 768Kbps downstream and 132Kbps upstream. My monthly Internet access cost of USD14.95 combined with the aforementioned USD25.00/month for my Verizon basic unlimited local calling telephone service results in a total monthly expense of about USD40.00. Dropping the USD25.00/month telephone service should reduce my monthly Verizon expense to USD14.95, but it doesn't. Let's see why...
Verizon, just like Comcast (and probably anyone else offering broadband these days), sticks it to customers who purchase broadband only. Without Verizon telephone service, my DSL Starter Plan monthly rate goes to USD29.95/month thereby reducing my monthly savings from USD25.00 to USD10.00. Verizon's next step up in DSL service is their Power Plan providing 3Mbps downstream and 768Kbps upstream. The DSL Power Plan rings in at USD39.99/month without Verizon telephone service. (As an aside, Verizon calls DSL service without their telephone service a dry loop connection.) By upgrading to the DSL Power Plan service, I will effectively wipe out any dollar savings I might have been able to realize with magicJack. But, here's the interesting thing. For the same amount of money each month (not counting magicJack's negligible USD19.95/annum licensing fee, which is canceled out by the elimination of the USD20.00/annum toll and long-distance minutes I used to purchase through OneSuite), I will have increased my broadband Internet service connection rate, telephone calling features and gained unlimited toll and long-distance calling for the same amount of money I have been paying each month. This actually works out to be a good value.
CONSIDERATIONS
There are some considerations for anyone contemplating magicJack as a land-line replacement. Let's look at these now.
1. magicJack telephone service is not Verizon telephone service. There is a difference in call quality and service reliability. In my case, magicJack functions at least as well as my wireless telephone. So, I can live with it.
2. magicJack voicemail is unreliable. I find that magicJack voicemail only picks up about 65% of the time. You can use an answering machine instead of magicJack's voicemail. However, this could prove to be a nuisance since the answering machine will need to be set to its two rings setting in order to answer the incoming calls. The four ring setting may not catch the magicJack calls since magicJack voicemail is hard-coded to intercept calls after four rings. This also makes the toll-saver setting that many answering machines have unuseable. (NOTE: I am presently studying the magicJack voicemail issue to better understand what may be causing the unreliability.)
3. Setting up magicJack on the Hewlett Packard T5710 Thin Client is not for the faint-of-heart. My professional background includes 20 years of information technology experience in networking, telecommunications and server infrastructure. The magicJack effort was my first experience with a Thin Client and I drew heavily on my professonal and personal "geek" experience to get the magicJack/Thin Client combination up and running. In fact, I cannot honestly say that it would have ever occurred to me to try changing the USB port driver had it not been for HolmanGT's post on this issue. That was an excellent discovery on his part and he has my sincerest respect for catching that. In any case, I've been through the Thin Client setup (from scratch) three times now (not all by choice either) and it is certainly less mysterious to me now than it was five weeks ago.
4. magicJack has zero effective support. If you have problems with your magicJack or the magicJack telephony service, you would do best to resign yourself to the idea that you will wait until "they" (i.e. the magicJack folks) fix the issue (see my review of Verizon's DSL service on DSL Reports for more on this concept). The support is abysmal and you should expect nothing in order to avoid being disappointed. In my case, I rely on my own geekiness to get me through the tough spots.
5. If you decide to replace your land-line telephone service with magicJack, kiss your land-line telephone number a teary good-bye. In response to my chat inquiry regarding telephone number portability availability, the magicJack representative said it would be available in the next several months -- whatever that means. To me, it means no. So, after nearly 17 years with the same Verizon (well, it was Bell of Pennsylvania back then) telephone number, I am saying good-bye to my old number. I didn't believe I was going to miss it, but somehow, I will.  Oh well, at least I won't be getting calls from old boyfriends. This might not be so bad after all.  I digress...
6. magicJack's terms of service are aggressively designed to facilitate an advertising-supported business model. It is shocking to me that most Americans don't read terms of service agreements, but the sad truth is we don't. A more thorough commentary on the terms of service is beyond the scope of this article. However, I am considering a future article on magicJack's terms of service to help people better understand the impact of the terms on personal privacy. If this is something that you would like to see, do let me know. The business precedent for magicJack's business model, as it turns out, is Juno (no, not the movie) e-mail (for those of you that have been around awhile.) Juno's early business model (circa late 1990s) was advertising-supported free Internet e-mail. Juno provided customers a dialer and dial-up access and a proprietary e-mail client that allowed e-mail-only Internet dial-up and downloaded advertisements to the client computer during dial-up e-mail sessions. Juno is still around today, but the advertisement-supported e-mail business model turned out to be unsustainable over time. Juno merged with NetZero in 2001 and broadened their portfolio of services to drive revenue harder and subsidize the unprofitable advertisement-supported e-mail-only dial-up service. Times are very different today and telephony has become a highly commoditized service. magicJack may experience more success with the advertisment-supported service model depending upon how they structure their advertising channels (e.g. softphone client e-advertisements vs. selling our magicJack telephone numbers).
7. You should NOT replace your existing land-line telephone service with magicJack unless you have a wireless telephone on which you can rely as a back-up in the event magicJack telephone service is unavailable. In my case, I have T-Mobile and I happen to enjoy excellent wireless signal strength at home. So, if I need telephone service in an emergency, I can use my wireless telephone in the event magicJack is unavailable.
8. magicJack does not work with a fax machine. This is outlined in magicJack's terms of service. Unfortunately, this is a bit of a pain for me. I do send a couple of faxes each month and I have worked out an alternate arrangement where I can scan the documents and e-mail the images to the folks to whom I need to send them. If you absolutely have to have inbound and outbound fax capability, you will need to keep your land-line service or make other arrangements.
9. I was going to write something here about magicJack's 911 service, but then it occurred to me that I couldn't care less about 911 service. I don't use 911 and I would be perfectly happy not to have 911 service. That's just my opinion, of course. (Please don't send me a bunch of e-mails telling me how great 911 service is. Believe it or not, there was a time before 911 service and somehow we managed to get through it. Well, I did anyway.) When I was a kid we had the telephone numbers of the police and fire departments and ambulance service right next to the telephone and we didn't have to pay a bunch of money each month for it either. Anyway, if 911 service is important to you then you should probably test your magicJack by dialing 911 and verifying that your address is appearing correctly to the 911 operator before assuming that this feature is functioning correctly.
CONCLUSION
I'm excited about trying out magicJack as my home telephone service. I view this as an experiment and it's kind of fun. In the final analysis, if magicJack doesn't survive, I can always get land-line service again if I want it.
I'll report on here from time-to-time to provide updates on my magicJack telephone service experience.
I'm considering producing a video on building a dedicated magicJack telephony server using the Hewlett Packard T5710 Thin Client and a magicJack. It's a pretty significant undertaking and I haven't quite talked myself into it just yet.
Thank you for reading this article.
Do have a lovely day. 
Lisa | |
hendersonman
join:2008-04-09
| Hi Lisa,
Regarding #8 in your post, faxing DOES work with MagicJack. It may not work for you, but it works for me and countless others. You need to go to »unofficialmagicjack.forum2u.org/ and do a search for fax. I have been using my fax since day one without one hiccup. They actually do not say fax won't work at the MJ site, they do state that it may/may not work.
 | |
Lenagainster
join:2005-01-07
Silver Spring, MD
 ·VoicePulse
 ·DIRECTV
·magicjack.com
| reply to lcompton
Nice article, Lisa. Perhaps you could make it a "review" when you have had MJ exclusively for a while.
Not something I would do personally, as I don't have the expertise to set up a thin client. Ideally, I would like to go strictly cellphone, if only the cost was practical.
Good luck on your transition.
Lena | |
lcompton
join:2008-05-04
Exton, PA
·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to hendersonman
said by hendersonman  :Hi Lisa, Regarding #8 in your post, faxing DOES work with MagicJack. It may not work for you, but it works for me and countless others. You need to go to » unofficialmagicjack.forum2u.org/ and do a search for fax. I have been using my fax since day one without one hiccup. They actually do not say fax won't work at the MJ site, they do state that it may/may not work.
Good evening, hendersonman.
Let's be sure we're both on the same page with regard to what magicJack states in their terms of service regarding fax machines. Here is the direct quote from condition one (1), paragraph two, last sentence of magicJack's terms of service:
"The magicJack device may not be compatible with non-voice communications equipment, including but not limited to, home security systems, medical monitoring equipment, fax machines, satellite television systems, or computer modems."
Anyone wishing to verify this quote may do so at »www.magicjack.com/tos/.
Now, it wouldn't be the first time someone called me cynical, but I don't believe magicJack would have included fax machines in that sentence if the expectation was for fax machines to function with magicJack. That said, I did as you suggested and searched on the term "fax" at »unofficialmagicjack.forum2u.org/. What I discovered were numerous posts by folks who desired to be able to use magicJack for faxing, but were unable to do so successfully. There were some replies from folks who were able to fax successfully using a variety of techniques -- two of which piqued my curiosity immensely.
The first was a suggestion that using a DSL filter (something of which I have several) in a reverse configuration to attach a fax machine to the magicJack POTS line. It is not at all clear to me why this technique would have any useful affect at all. Fax tones, which happen to be in the audible range of the frequency spectrum (this is an artifact of the original fax specification, which used acoustic coupling in the early days), are generally impervious to inaudible line frequency noise. I am keenly interested in a solid technical explanation as to why a DSL filter in a reverse configuration would do anything to help a fax machine. It's against my better judgement (I tend to be adverse to trying things that don't make sense to me), but I confess that I may just give this a try.
The second suggestion, which is also curious to me is that some folks reported success sending faxes with magicJack when they manually throttled down the baud rate of their fax machines. This is interesting because the fax specification (the code escapes me at the moment, but it's probably only a Google search away) includes auto-negotiation and auto-renegotiation when line quality conditions change. So, according to the theory of operation in fax handshaking, two fax machines establishing a connection at, say, the highest available fax baud rate of 14.4Kbps, and then line conditions deteriorate at some point during the connection, the two fax machines are supposed to auto-renegotiate to the next highest standard increment baud rate until the fax machines find a baud rate that the line condition can sustain. Interestingly, if line conditions improve again, the fax communications specification includes a condition to again auto-renegotiate back up through the next standard baud rate increments until the highest baud rate sustainable under the present line conditions is found.
I'm going to do some experimentation in the area of manual baud rate setting and I will be sure to report back on my findings.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, hendersonman.
Do have a nice day.
Lisa | |
lcompton
join:2008-05-04
Exton, PA
·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to Lenagainster
said by Lenagainster :Nice article, Lisa. Perhaps you could make it a "review" when you have had MJ exclusively for a while. Not something I would do personally, as I don't have the expertise to set up a thin client. Ideally, I would like to go strictly cellphone, if only the cost was practical. Good luck on your transition. Lena
Good evening, Lena.
I agree. I'll give magicJack a couple of months in its exclusive role and then update the article and post it back as a review.
Your comment regarding setup of a Thin Client solution is exactly why I believe a well-done instructional video on the subject is indicated. Such a video could significantly broaden the audience of folks who could leverage this solution.
I suppose it's like anything else. It's not very difficult once one knows how. An instructional video could fill in this crucial gap.
Thank you for writing.
Lisa | |
swanboy
join:2001-01-22
Hollywood, FL
 ·Comcast
·magicjack.com
|  reply to lcompton
Lisa,
Thank you for this. At times, I get frustrated with the people who senselessly complain without the knowledge or background analysis.
I'm very glad to see some real research and service comparisons that really make sense.
I concur.
-C | |
RockyBB
Premium
join:2005-01-31
Longmont, CO
| reply to lcompton
I'll agree that this was nicely done. As you update and augment your findings, you might consider addressing these two topics:
1. you expressed disappointment at losing your Verizon local number, but you were silent about whether or not MJ will allow you to port out their assigned phone number.
2. you installed your MJ on a dedicated device, not your main home PC. most MJ customers will be installing the dialing and advertising client on their home PCs, and there is no uninstall option for that software. sure, there are complicated procedures for manually deleting it, but the vast majority of folks are not going to know how to do that or where to look for such directions. what is your view of giving MJ access to a customer's computer system? they probably don't, but if MJ had nefarious motives does their software allow them to download additional software onto customer PCs and/or to extract files from the hard drive? If customer's home PC contains private and personal information, including passwords and financial data, would you feel comfortable with MJ having unblocked access to a program on the hard drive? without an undelete option, even if the customer cancels service the software remains -- MJ has access to it and the typical user won't know how to block that access ... what is the jeopardy to a former customer? | |
lcompton
join:2008-05-04
Exton, PA
·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to swanboy
Good evening, C.
I appreciate your feedback. I don't like to be too hard on non-geeks. Sometimes, even I find technology frustrating so I can just imagine how it might seem to folks who are less inclined to be geeky.
The real trick is for all of us to be patient when trying something new and really try to work through the challenges as they arise.
Thank you for writing.
Lisa | |
lcompton
join:2008-05-04
Exton, PA
·Verizon Online DSL
1 edit | reply to RockyBB
said by RockyBB :I'll agree that this was nicely done. As you update and augment your findings, you might consider addressing these two topics: 1. you expressed disappointment at losing your Verizon local number, but you were silent about whether or not MJ will allow you to port out their assigned phone number. 2. you installed your MJ on a dedicated device, not your main home PC. most MJ customers will be installing the dialing and advertising client on their home PCs, and there is no uninstall option for that software. sure, there are complicated procedures for manually deleting it, but the vast majority of folks are not going to know how to do that or where to look for such directions. what is your view of giving MJ access to a customer's computer system? they probably don't, but if MJ had nefarious motives does their software allow them to download additional software onto customer PCs and/or to extract files from the hard drive? If customer's home PC contains private and personal information, including passwords and financial data, would you feel comfortable with MJ having unblocked access to a program on the hard drive? without an undelete option, even if the customer cancels service the software remains -- MJ has access to it and the typical user won't know how to block that access ... what is the jeopardy to a former customer?
Good evening, RockyBB.
Please forgive me, but I have no interest in entering a speculative debate about magicJack. My interest is in factual information surrounding the technology and the company. Many of the concerns you have raised are adequately addressed in magicJack's terms of service and privacy policy. For your convenience, I am including the links here:
Terms of Service
»www.magicjack.com/tos/
Privacy Policy
»www.magicjack.com/1/privacy.asp
If you take the time to read both of these documents carefully (it took me about 30 minutes), you will see that your concerns about the level of access magicJack has to your computer is well-defined and that your concerns about magicJack's level of access to your computer are unfounded. magicJack's business model thrives on access to people via the magicJack softphone client and individual account information, which can be used for marketing purposes. There is absolutely no evidence that magicJack is interested in downloading personal non-magicJack content from customers' computers.
I agree with your complaint regarding the lack of a graceful uninstall applet. If you read my first or second post in this forum, you will learn that I initially installed my magicJack on my desktop P.C. prior to installing it in its permanent home on the Hewlett Packard T5710 Thin Client. I successfully uninstalled the magicJack from my desktop computer using the following procedure:
SAYING GOOD-BYE TO MAGICJACK SOFTWARE/DRIVERS
• Plug in your magicJack (if it isn't already connected to your USB port),
• Use Device Manager to uninstall (in this order) the magicJack CD-ROM, disk drive and USB hub,
• Unplug the magicJack from the USB port,
• Delete the mjusbsp folder and all sub-folders (this folder can be found at C:\Documents and Settings\{your user name}\Application Data\mjusbsp),
• Use regedit to locate the HKEY Current User Talk4Free entries and delete the Talk4Free key and all sub-keys,
• Delete the magicJack desktop icon, and
• Reboot your P.C.
That's it. These magicJack removal steps are exactly the ones I used on my Windows XP Media Center P.C. and are based on instructions provided at »digital-nomads.blogspot.com/2008···are.html. I vetted this procedure and modified it to suit the manner in which magicJack was installed on my P.C. I did not delete the driver files residing on the hard disk. They are not harming anything and they are not loaded so they are only consuming a negligible amount of disk space.
The reason I was "silent", as you put it, regarding the availability of porting magicJack-assigned telephone numbers to other carriers is that I never inquired about this capability with the magicJack folks. Honestly, it never occurred to me. Having just given up a Verizon telephone number that I had for nearly 17 years, I cannot imagine any reason why I would be concerned about porting a magicJack-assigned telephone number elsewhere. If I had to abandon magicJack for some reason, I am sure I would leave the magicJack telephone number behind as well.
Thank you for writing.
Lisa | |
lcompton
join:2008-05-04
Exton, PA
·Verizon Online DSL
1 edit | reply to lcompton
Good evening.
There are a number of updates to provide regarding my magicJack adventure and this seems to be a good time to provide an interim article on the status of my effort to replace my Verizon land-line telephone service with magicJack.
VERIZON ORDER STATUS UPDATE
On Monday, 2 June, I called Verizon to cancel my Verizon land-line telephone service and increase the connection rate of my DSL service from 768Kbps downstream and 132kbps upstream (Verizon's DSL Starter Plan) to 3Mbps downsteam and 768Kbps upstream (Verizon's DSL Power Plan). I decided it would be a good test to try placing my order using magicJack.
The Verizon representative with whom I ended up speaking seemed to have a good grasp on the dry loop concept and, after a brief attempt at trying to convince me to keep my telephone service and upsell services to me, agreed to cancel my telephone service and place an order to increase my broadband Internet connection rate. I was mildly amused when the representative began to tell me about the unreliability of voice-over-IP. I thought to myself, if only the representative realized that I was on a voice-over-IP connection right now. The Verizon representative asked me if I was going with Vonage and I replied no. Then she asked me what voice-over-IP service I was planning to use and I said that I was going with a free service that requires a USD20.00/annum licensing fee. I did not tell the representative it was magicJack.
The representative advised me that my broadband Internet cost would increase as a result of not having Verizon telephone service and I advised the representative that I was aware of this information and that I had called a few weeks ago and been told that the DSL Power Plan would cost USD39.99/month. The representative told me that I had been misinformed and that the monthly rate for the DSL Power Plan would be USD41.99/month. (It's times like these that I really have to expend a lot of effort to bite my tongue.) Anyway, I explained to the representative that I was unhappy with what seemed like a bait and switch tactic. The representative was clearly uninterested in my protest and would have been more than happy to have me cancel the order. Realizing that the only other game in town is Comcast at USD57.95/month, I reluctantly accepted the USD41.99/month DSL Power Plan cost. (I realize it's only a USD2.00 difference from what I had been previously advised, but it's very annoying none-the-less.)
After the order was placed, the Verizon representative advised me that everything would be completed by 1800 EDT that evening (2 June). Now, here's the interesting thing... My Uniden cordless telephones automatically time all of my calls. When I hung up with Verizon, I had been on the telephone for 57 minutes and 59 seconds. This call was nearly one hour using magicJack and not a single problem. I was quite pleased.
As for Verizon, Well, my telephone service wasn't disconnected until sometime early Thursday morning (5 June) and my DSL broadband service still hasn't been upgraded to the Power Plan connection rate. (For the disbelievers among us, feel free to call my old Verizon telephone number. It was (610) 363-0499. It was an unlisted number so if you perform a reverse look-up on it you won't get any hits.) Curiously, when I call my old Verizon telephone number from magicJack, I get a ring-no-answer. Calling my old number from my T-Mobile wireless results in the familiar disconnected number recording.
Today I called Verizon in an attempt to learn the prognosis of my broadband connection rate increase and I was surprised to learn that the order has a service-ready date of 12 June, which is next Thursday. Bummer. I'm disappointed that Verizon didn't communicate this to me. I received only one e-mail from Verizon shortly after I placed my original order on 2 June and here is what it said:
Dear Valued Verizon Online Member,
This message is to confirm your order to disconnect your Verizon local service. So that you may continue your broadband service, your previous Verizon High Speed Internet account on 6103630499 has been converted to a new Verizon High Speed Internet account over a dedicated data line with no voice service. We call this service, "Verizon High Speed Internet without local service". Your email address and settings and other aspects of your account (like your portal selection) will not be affected by this change.
If you are still within an annual commitment period, your annual term will restart. Customers on a monthly plan or who have completed their annual plan term will remain as month-to-month plan customers.
Important!
Once this order is processed (generally within 5 days or longer if you requested a later date), you will receive a communication with your Verizon High Speed Internet without local service Dedicated Data Line Number.
Prior to receiving this communication:
• You can use your Verizon High Speed Internet service without interruption.
• You will be billed for all phone calls made during the transition period.
After the switch:
• You will still enjoy the full benefits of your Verizon High Speed Internet service
• You will no longer be able to make or receive telephone calls on your new dedicated data line, which will be limited to providing high-speed Internet service only
• Your Verizon High Speed Internet service will be billed separately from any voice service
• Your line will no longer qualify for Verizon bundle or package pricing
• Traditional 911 or E911 access to emergency services are not available over the dedicated data line (Except for VT where access to emergency services is legally required to be made available)
• Your line will no longer qualify for Directory Listing services
• Operator Assistance and 411 services are not available
• Call Referral Service is not available
Access all your account information online at »www.verizon.net/myaccount.
If you have any questions or need to make any changes to your order, please call us at 1-800-567-6789. (Be sure to choose "DSL" if asked which Verizon Online service you ordered.)
Thank you for choosing Verizon Online! Your business is important to us.
Sincerely,
Verizon Online
Customer Care Team
Verizon, one of the nation's leading providers of high-speed Internet services, has created one of the best overall values in broadband today, with speed and great service at a very affordable price.
This message was sent from a notification-only e-mail address that cannot accept incoming e-mail messages. Please do not reply. Copyright 2007 Verizon. All Rights Reserved.
OTHER MAGICJACK OBSERVATIONS FOR THE WEEK
1. Today I had an opportunity to try magicJack on a business call. I was working from home and dialed into a conference bridge through magicJack. I confess that I was a bit apprehensive about using magicJack on a business call, but it had to be done in order to put magicJack through its paces. The business call lasted 25 minutes and magicJack performed nearly flawlessly. No one on the call commented on the quality of my call, which tells me it was acceptable enough for people not to notice anything different from all of the other times I've called into the conference bridge with my Verizon land-line. The one problem that I did discover with magicJack is that it won't let me dial PIN codes using the touch tone keys on the telephone keypad. The touch tones don't seem to be recognized by the conference bridge service. Interestingly, if I programmed the digits into a speed dial location and then initiated the speed dial key to feed the digits into the conference bridge, the touch tone digits were recognized by the conference bridge. I was also able to confirm that dialing the digits using the softphone client on the dedicated telephony server successfully fed the touch tone digits to the conference bridge. This is a minor inconvenience that I hope magicJack will correct in a subsequent software update.
2. I've discovered that my magicJack seems to like to be re-initialized (re-started) periodically. I'm not certain how often this re-initialization is indicated, but I'm going to keep track of the frequency to get a better handle on this phenomenon. If necessary, I can automate periodic reboots of the dedicated magicJack telephony server. The specific symptoms that I have observed that seemed to be corrected by a magicJack re-initialization are:1. Calls seem to take longer to connect and
2. Some calls never seem to connect; i.e. after dialing, the call stays in a dead air state indefinitely.
That's about it for now.
Thank you for reading this article.
Do have a lovely day!
Lisa | |
dbmaven
There's no shortage
Premium,Mod
join:1999-10-26
Sty in Sky
clubs: | reply to lcompton
(topic move) magicJack Set To Become My Primary Home Telephone S
Moderator Action
The post that was here, has been moved to a new topic .. »Sound only through computer not telephone | |
lcompton
join:2008-05-04
Exton, PA
·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to lcompton
Re: magicJack Set To Become My Primary Home Telephone Service
Good afternoon.
This is simply a minor update on my magicJack supporting infrastructure.
Today, I decided to do something that I've been wanting to do for several years now. magicJack gave me the last little nudge to take the step and purchase an uninterruptable power supply (UPS) for my network. So, I wandered over to Office Depot and picked up a 1.5Kw APC Back-UPS XS.
Connected to the UPS are the Hewlett Packard T5710 Thin Client, Westell 6100 DSL Modem/Router, Linksys WRT54G Wireless Router and Uniden DCT6485 Cordless Telephone System. The UPS is seriously over-specified for this equipment load, which means I can probably run the equipment for about one day in the even of a power failure. In fact, the equipment doesn't even register on the UPS' front panel load meter, which is pretty funny. As an added bonus, my laptops will also have Internet access in the event of a power failure.
Power failures here in Exton don't occur often, but when they do they fall into two categories; very brief or very long. In July 2006 (or was it August, I don't recall now) we had a band of thunderstorms roll through this region that took out my power for three days. It wasn't any fun either. By the third day, even my Verizon telephone service was dead. When PECO (our regional electric and gas company) restored power, I had DSL service, but no telephone. How ironic is that?!
Anyway, the UPS is charging at the moment and the instructions state that it will take 16 hours. When it's fully charged, I'll run a simulation and advise how long the equipment stayed operational.
Thank you,
Lisa
P.S. Has anyone else forgotten for a moment that you actually don't have regular land-line telephone service anymore when you go to use magicJack? This happened to me a couple of times this weekend. It's the dial tone. I pick up a phone in my home and hear the dial tone and immediately my brain is in Verizon mode. Too funny. | |
baj475
join:2004-11-02
Chico, CA
·Future Nine Corpor..
| Lisa,
I got my second MJ but have not yet tried two in the same computer at once. Even if it works, I would prefer not to keep my power hungry main computer running 24 hours a day and was intrigued by your thin client solution, because I too am considering replacing all of my land lines with MJs. At what these thin clients can be had for on ebay, two would not be an unreasonable solution. Is the T5710 the minimum you would recommend? I am not familiar with thin clients. Once set up can things like monitors, keyboards and mice be unplugged? Can they be setup for remote administration so I could control them from another computer on my local network? Thanks for your input. | |
lcompton
join:2008-05-04
Exton, PA
·Verizon Online DSL
| said by baj475 :Lisa, I got my second MJ but have not yet tried two in the same computer at once. Even if it works, I would prefer not to keep my power hungry main computer running 24 hours a day and was intrigued by your thin client solution, because I too am considering replacing all of my land lines with MJs. At what these thin clients can be had for on ebay, two would not be an unreasonable solution. Is the T5710 the minimum you would recommend? I am not familiar with thin clients. Once set up can things like monitors, keyboards and mice be unplugged? Can they be setup for remote administration so I could control them from another computer on my local network? Thanks for your input.
Good evening, baj475.
I'll respond to your inquiry a little later with details and some useful resources that will help you. I'm on my way out to dinner with friends right now.
Thank you,
Lisa | |
taflocks
@rr.com | reply to lcompton
how about a step by step set up of a thin client tutorial for dummies? that would really help some of us that are mentaly chalanged as myself. | |
lcompton
join:2008-05-04
Exton, PA
·Verizon Online DSL
| said by taflocks :
how about a step by step set up of a thin client tutorial for dummies? that would really help some of us that are mentaly chalanged as myself.
Good evening, taflocks.
A step-by-step guide might be a bit of a challenge for me to create. I'm having some challenges with time, which is why I haven't posted my next major review article. The Thin Client solution is not looking promising, however, as a long-term viable platform on which to run magicJack. I will explain more about this in my next major review.
There is a forum called The Unofficial magicJack Forum, which has a ton of information on setting up Thin Clients. I kind of wish I had known about it before I setup mine. I setup mine by trial and error and learned a lot along the way. Had I known about the resources at The Unofficial magicJack Forum, I'm sure I could have set it up in a fraction of the time because I would have been taking advantage of information learned by others who had already been there.
Thank you for writing.
Lisa | |
mozerd
Light Will Pierce The Darkness
Premium,MVM
join:2004-04-23
Nepean, ON
4 edits | said by lcompton :I'm having some challenges with time, which is why I haven't posted my next major review article. The Thin Client solution is not looking promising, however, as a long-term viable platform on which to run magicJack. I will explain more about this in my next major review. If your Thin Client is a 5710 and is configured with 512/512 then I believe that a solution exists that solves your current issue. All you have to do is install the Altiris XPe Add-On (DirectX) -- remove the Host file adjustment you made to prevent upgrades AND away you go.
This was tested and you can read the result of that test in the following link:
Thin Clients / MagicJack / Future Upgrades?
[EDIT] Update -- apparently not everyone is having success with the DirectX install -- there may be some additional configuration steps that might be required having to do with the RAM disk and RDC audio settings. The link above provides a blow by blow discussion.
[EDIT] Update -- apparently a solution has been found; specifically -- install the DirectX API then adjust yout Hosts file to remove the entry that prevented MJ from updating the software then do a COMMIT/REBOOT and that should fix the issue. The following link has the details:
HAPPINESS is when 'No Audio Devices Are Found, etc Gone
[EDIT] Update: Apparently  the solution referenced above does not work for everyone -- so a little more patience may be in order and we may actually find a solution that sticks.
--
David Mozer
IT-Expert on Call
Information Technology for Home and Business | |
mozerd
Light Will Pierce The Darkness
Premium,MVM
join:2004-04-23
Nepean, ON
1 edit | said by mozerd :[EDIT] Update: Apparently the solution referenced above does not work for everyone -- so a little more patience may be in order and we may actually find a solution that sticks. I believe that a solution has been definitively found for the issue “no audio input/outputs were found” caused by the magicJack version 1.80.4411.3084 software update [ hurray ] -- and that solution will be posted later today or to-morrow by HolmanGT at the Unofficial magicJack Forum == »unofficialmagicjack.forum2u.org/···034.html.
--
David Mozer
IT-Expert on Call
Information Technology for Home and Business | |
lcompton
join:2008-05-04
Exton, PA
·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to lcompton
Good afternoon.
Please accept my apologies for my prolonged silence. There are numerous updates indicated based on my experiences with magicJack and my journey to DSL-only service from Verizon. Significant effort has been expended in researching faxing via magicJack and bandwidth consumption as well. Because I have severe restrictions on how much time I can devote to documenting this project, I will comment on all but the faxing and bandwidth considerations in this article.
TO CHARGE OR NOT TO CHARGE
Much has been written about alleged unscrupulous charging practices by magicJack with regard to their 30-day free trial. So, I thought I would weigh in on the issue with the facts of my experience.
I ordered my magicJack on 20 April 2008. Here is a copy of the confirmation e-mail I received from magicJack after placing my order:
Important: Please reply to this email right away if you want any modifications from your order below, so we can ship your magicjack right away. You do not have to take any action if you do not want to make any changes. Please refer all tech questions to the link below when you get your magicJack. Thank you so much and your magicJack is on it's way. Dan Borislow The Inventor
Dear LISA A. COMPTON,
Great News. Your 2008 Product of the Year - magicJack, is on its way to you; get ready to start making Free Local and Long Distance calls and get a Local Phone number for Life.
Free Trial Jacks will not be billed to your credit card until the **30 Day Free Trial expires. We will however place an authorization of one dollar on your credit card (may appear as "pending charge") for the free trial. If you don't love the magicjack (we know you will), simply return it within thirty days - no questions asked.
Order No.: XXXXXXXXX
Reference ID: XXXXXXX
Total magicJacks Ordered: 1
Order Shipping Information
Customer Name: LISA A COMPTON
Address 1: 207 N SEVERGN DR
Address 2:
City, State, Zip: EXTON, PA 19341-1572
Country: United States
Phone#:
Order Summary
Qty Item Description Price Ea Total Price Charge Date
----- -------------------------------------------------- ---------- ------------- -----------
1 30 Day magicJack Trial 39.95 39.95 05/20/2008
1 Shipping & Handling 6.95 6.95 05/20/2008
--------------------------
ORDER TOTAL: $46.90
Your credit card will be charged on or after the
following date(s) for the amounts listed below
Date: 05/20/2008 Charge Amount: $46.90
Important: Please save this email for thirty days as it contains your Order Number
Some useful information:
You may check on the status of your order at any time by clicking here Order Status and entering your email address and order number. For your convenience, these have been included in this link.
For questions regarding technical information click here Technical Chat and a representative will assist you. Please note that this link is specifically for technical issues (not for order/billing information - see above for order/billing inquiries).
**Details of 30 day free trial:
Other considerations related to our 30 Day Free Trial Offer:
1. If you purchased 3 or more magicJacks, your card will be billed upon order fulfillment.
2. If you used PayPal for your magicJack order, PayPal will charge your credit card on the date of purchase.
Congratulations, enjoy your savings.
Yours truly,
magicJack
Sure enough, magicJack kept their word and charged my American Express Card on 20 May 2008, which is exactly 30 days after the order date of 20 April 2008. You can view the charge as it appears on my American Express Card statement at »www.compton.org/images/magicjack_charge.PNG.
As an aside, I ordered my magicJack on a Sunday and received it the following Wednesday, which works out to three days. I'm certainly glad I didn't order any of the expedited shipping services.
THE INTERNET CONNECTON UPGRADE
On 12 June, Verizon completed the upgrade of my DSL service from their so-called DSL Starter Plan to their DSL Power Plan. The bandwidth migration was from 768Kbps downstream/132Kbps upstream to 3Mbps downstream/768Kbps upstream. Here are the results of some speed tests performed before »www.compton.org/images/speed_test_before.PNG and after »www.compton.org/images/speed_test_after.PNG the upgrade:
Both tests were performed between my residence in Exton, Pennsylvania and Speakeasy's (»www.speakeasy.net/speedtest) New York City servers.
The increase in broadband connection rate has had no noticeable impact on magicJack performance, which is as it should be. The DSL Starter Plan bandwidth was sufficient to meet magicJack's requirements. From a more general Internet experience, the DSL upgrade has been rather pleasant. It is certainly closer to true broadband than the DSL Starter Plan ever was (see my review of Verizon DSL Starter Plan on DSL Reports.)
Verizon completed the order with the following e-mail sent four days after the DSL upgrade was implemented:
Dear Valued Verizon Online Member,
Your Verizon Online DSL account has been converted.
Your order to disconnect your Verizon local service and change your Verizon Online DSL account to a dedicated data line with no voice service is now complete.
Per your request, your Verizon Online DSL without local service dedicated data line XXXXXXXXXX is limited to just DSL high-speed Internet access service. Your new monthly rate for this service is $ 41.99.
In the future, if you ever decide to add Verizon voice service back to this line, please call us at 1-800-567-6789.
As a reminder, you will be billed for your DSL service charges separately. Any discounts you may have been receiving as a result of bundling Verizon Online DSL with other Verizon communication services together will no longer apply. Access all your account information and view your bill online at »www.verizon.net/myaccount.
Your use of or payment for Verizon Online DSL without local service constitutes your acceptance of and agreement to your new service monthly rate and the Verizon terms of service that can be found by clicking on Verizon Internet Access Terms of Service. If you do not agree with the new monthly rate applicable to your DSL without local service or the terms and conditions, do not use the service and immediately call Verizon at 1-800-567-6789 to cancel your DSL service.
If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call us at 1-800-567-6789.
Thank you for choosing Verizon Online DSL. We appreciate your continued business.
Sincerely,
Verizon Online
Broadband Customer Care Team
Verizon, one of the nation's leading providers of high-speed Internet services, has created one of the best overall values in broadband today, with speed, content and great service at a very affordable price.
This message was sent from a notification-only e-mail address that cannot accept incoming e-mail messages. Please do not reply. Copyright 2007 Verizon. All Rights Reserved.
11 JUNE 2008, A DAY THAT WILL LIVE IN INFAMY
On 11 June 2008, magicJack decided to begin pushing out a magicJack software upgrade that effectively broke magicJack compatibility with the Hewlett Packard T5710 Thin Client. The software upgrade was retrieved during a magicJack restart, which could be initiated any number of ways by the end-user. I was aching to try the upgrade so I decided to initiate my upgrade by manually triggering a restart through magicJack's menu options. After the upgrade completed, I received an on-screen dialog box error stating that no audio devices could be found. At first, I thought my RCON client connection was configured incorrectly because this was the exact same error I received when I originally setup RCON access to the Thin Client. At that time, it was because the RCON client was configured to bring audio to the local (client) computer (as opposed to leaving audio I/O on the Thin Client (host) computer.) Alas, the no-audio-device error was not the result of RCON client configuration. At this point, I knew I was in trouble...
I started trying a few experiments to see if I could figure out why the upgrade broke Thin Client-magicJack compatibility to no avail. (This would be so much easier if magicJack would issue decent release notes with their upgrades.) Someone posted instructions on the Unofficial magicJack Forum describing a process to revert the magicJack software upgrade back to the previous version, which was functioning with the Thin Client. So, preferring to have a working home telephone system over spending hours experimenting with the upgrade trying to identify what was causing the incompatibility, I decided to perform the retrograde, which did not go well at first. I would later learn on the morning of 12 June that the attempt at retrograding the software failed at first because of an availability issue with magicJack's servers. The retrograde performed successfully on the morning of 12 June 2008.
It seems to me that it would have made more sense for magicJack to release their software upgrade on Friday, 13 June. At least then the entire episode would have been funny...
In order to prevent the magicJack from automatically upgrading itself at some point, a statement was required in the hosts file, which would effectively prevent the magicJack from finding the upgrade server during upgrade polling events.
Generally speaking, the retrograded magicJack performed reasonably well. For one thing, there was no 911 information banner appearing at the bottom of the softphone, which was truly a delight. It got me thinking how nice it would be if one could opt-out of 911 service. Some folks on the Unofficial magicJack forum were claiming that the ability to enter touch tones for PINs and access codes had been corrected after retrograding the software upgrade leading them to believe that magicJack had made some changes on their servers to correct this issue. I cannot confirm this. After the retrograde, I was still unable to use touch tones for entering access codes. In the interest of clarification, this is a good place to state that the retrograded magicJack software release running on my Thin Client was 1.73.4153.2910. Fortunately, I had downloaded this release from magicJack's web-site several weeks before they released their software upgrade.
My initial instincts were that magicJack had broken hardware compatibility with the Thin Client's audio sub-system. It would later turn out that this observation was only slightly accurate at best. In fact, magicJack appears to have switched the method used to access the host computer's audio sub-system from going through the operating system to direct, hardware-level, access. I'll spare the reader a history lesson of direct access to system hardware and simply redirect the reader to »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectX, which does a decent job of explaining why direct hardware access was developed by Microsoft as well as DirectX's evolution since it's inception nearly 13 years ago.
HolmanGT states that he confirmed magicJack's requirement for DirectX directly with magicJack's technical support.
Software developers typically prefer direct access to system hardware to gain better control of I/O and superior application performance; neither of which is obtainable when accessing system I/O through the host operating system. It is reasonable that magicJack recognized that they could improve the performance of the magicJack when using a headset/microphone combination through the host computer's audio sub-system by accessing the audio hardware directly rather than relying on the O/S I/O for access to the audio device. Interestingly, DirectX device access can improve host computer performance by not taxing the O/S with hardware device I/O operations.
THE UPGRADE
Deciding that it would be interesting to give DirectX a try, I decided to have a go at installing DirectX on my Thin Client. But, there was a wrinkle. DirectX requires a 512MB flash ROM/512MB RAM Thin Client in order to be installed. Unfortunately, my Thin Client had only 256MB flash ROM/256MB RAM. This is where having access to the Unofficial magicJack Forum's Tips, Tricks and Hacks section really came in handy. This particular area requires visitors to have a login in order to access the content. In this area I was able to find information on sources for Thin Client ROM and RAM upgrades. So, I ordered a 512MB flash ROM module from »ec.transcendusa.com/product/Item···DOM44H-S for USD20.80 (plus USD5.00 shipping and handling.) I also ordered a 512MB RAM module from »www.pcmemorystore.com/HP_Compaq-···-ram.htm for USD25.75 (plus USD4.99 shipping and handling). The total for all upgrades was USD56.54. It took one week to receive both parts.
Installing the new hardware took about 30 minutes, which includes time spent reading the T5000 Hardware Reference Guide explaining how to perform the hardware upgrades. One thing about the flash ROM module upgrade is that it has a blue LED directly on the circuit board that illuminates when the module is powered on. The Thin Client now emanates a lovely blue hue through the Thin Client air vents, which looks very pretty when the lights are off. After the hardware upgrade was completed, I proceeded to re-flash the Thin Client from scratch. This involved using the master O/S ROM flash image and then removing the following components:
• .NET Messenger
• Citrix ICA Client
• HP Session Allocation Manager
• Sygate Security Agent
• TeemNT
• Windows Media Player
After these components were removed, I made my usual regional customizations, reconfigured the Remote Procedure Call server to enable automatic time updates, and setup RCON host access.
DirectX installed flawlessly. As this was my fourth time configuring this Thin Client from scratch, I decided to get a little smarter and build a flash image with the configuration just the way I like it. I purchased three 2GB USB flash drives from Woot! (»www.woot.com) about two weeks ago and one of them will be a dedicated emergency recovery flash drive for the Thin Client. Very handy. If I need to make future changes, it will save all of the time spent adding/removing/configuring things over and over again.
All of the informational resources for the Hewlett Packard T5710 Thin Client can be found here:
»h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/Te···d=439748
This is your starting point for all things T5710. Software, manuals, etc. can all be found here.
Upon plugging in the magicJack and manually starting the application, the upgrade process began. Within about 90 seconds, magicJack was up and running and ready to call. Most importantly, the no-audio-device-found error was no longer displayed. Yay! The version of magicJack software presently running on my Thin Client is 1.80.4263.2980.
The two things that I've noticed with the upgrade is that touch tones now function satisfactorily when entering access codes. Yay! Unfortunately, the 911 banner is back. Oh well, at least I'm not paying for 911 anymore.
CONCLUSION
Sometime in March 2008, magicJack began shipping a new version of the magicJack device, which was incompatible with the T5710 Thin Client's default USB interface driver. It was necessary to change the USB device configuration in order to get magicJack to function. This month, magicJack released a software upgrade that broke compatibility with the T5710 Thin Client requiring DirectX to be installed. For me, the Thin Client is proving to be a high-maintenance solution, which I find undesirable. No one can say whether or not future magicJack upgrades will break Thin Client-magicJack compatibility. For those of us that desire reliable 7 x 24 telephony without wanting a lot of computer drama each time a magicJack upgrade is released, the Thin Client is most probably not the best solution.
My next steps are to procure an inexpensive laptop to use as a magicJack platform. The laptop I am going to source only needs to be a Windows XP machine. My budget is USD100.00 (including shipping), which should be achievable if I purchase an older laptop with a broken display and/or keyboard. The hard drive can be replaced with a solid-state device and the power settings can be set to minimize the on-time of the laptop's internal fan. Using Craig's List, eBay and Freecycle, I am optimistic that I'll be able to source a laptop within my budget (well, Freecycle would be no cost ). The idea behind this strategy is that I will be significantly reducing the likelihood of future incompatibilities between the magicJack and the host computer, which means less computer drama.
Once I switch my magicJack to a dedicated laptop, my upgraded Thin Client will find its way to eBay, which will help me recover some of my investment.
The important thing to recognize here is that if you decide to purchase a Thin Client, the available evidence is that you are more likely to encounter system compatibility issues with each magicJack software upgrade than you would running a magicJack on a full-blown computer with a normal release of Windows. If you don't mind fooling with the Thin Client and trying to solve the issues (assuming that they can be solved) as they arise, then the Thin Client may just work for you.
In closing, I wish to express my appreciation to the many folks who have researched the latest compatibility issue ultimately uncovering the correct answer to get the current release of the magicJack software functioning satisfactorily with Thin Clients. Excellent work, folks.
As always, thank you for reading this article.
Lisa | |
LectrkLady
@rr.com
| reply to mozerd
Lisa
thanks for all your time and effort on this.
A friend told me about MagicJack so I checked it out and since I am moving and getting rid of my phone no I thought "ok" .
It said it would work with a Mac -- I have a laptop (not the newest) but still running OSX 10.4.1 -- 867 MHz PowerPC G4 1MB L3 cache 512MB SDRAM
I tried the MagicJack on it but could not get it to work. I think I need to have a newer OSX but not ready to invest in that.
Anyways I have a PC that my son built and hooked it up to that and so far it is working fine. I have had a few times (as you said earlier) to restart MagicJack and/or my computer.
Sound quality is fine. The only problem has been with incoming calls letting people know that they must dial the area code (I do have a local number and area code on my MJ) before dialing (both incoming and outgoing). To me it isn't that big of a deal as I HATE PHONES. I don't like talking on them and could do without them and only have a prepay cell phone.
As I said I am moving but I think that I can keep my MJ number when I do. The way I understand it I can take my MJ anywhere, plug it in and it will work but after reading what you have said I am not sure if I must have my computer with me for that. Anyway while it is more expensive than I thought (paying for extra years I think) it is still a way better deal than the cable phone (though I loved caller ID on my tv screen) at 39.95 a month for all local and instate long distance.
Your idea to buy a cheap laptop is a great one and I am hoping my son still has the one that the screen got broken while he was in Iraq.
Also he will be doing another tour in Iraq and will maybe get one for him and his wife so they can talk and he can also talk to us. Only thing not sure of is if there is fast enough Internet in Iraq for it to work. He doesn't go until Nov so hopefully between now and then will learn more.
Thanks again
Barb
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