said by fiberguy :

Great. It works for you. Glad your computer has become an ATA device for what should be treated as a lifeline service.

Now, back to reality where the air exists and water is required to sustain life.

MAGIC JACK IS NOT "PHONE SERVICE"... it's a toy, plain and simple. If I were to rank the phone services out there are sustainability:

POTS
Cable Switched Service
Cable managed VoIP Service / Fiber VoIP (FiOS, Surewest)
Cell Phones
3rd Party Vonage, etc
Two-Cans & String
Skype
MagicJack

MJ is a ponzi scheme waiting for the breaking news that will be the next shocking news cycle story, which isn't a shocker to some of us already. If anyone knows anything about MJ and its model, and how it plays with the rest of the PSTN, MJ can't survive. It will eventually hit it's plateau and the service will go dead.

This service is a joke. (Yes, I have it and I've used it. The service sits in the drawer now) Not only does this "phone service" require internet connections (which is fine) it also relies on the stability of your PC, as you/we know, that has to remain powered up AND not crashed or sleeping.

Vonage finds that many people are not too keen on the notion of having to self serve their home phone needs. They're not happy with having to do their own installs (which is why they now have installer teams same as satellite did years ago) they find that people are not keen on having to reboot/power cycle their phone box, and people don't want to be passed around between providers when there's an issue with the service. (All proven facts)

Now comes MJ being pushed as a "real player in the phone business".. HAH! MagicJack is really nothing more, in my opinion, than a service like Skype that can plug into your phone jack. However, the boob that "invented it" is playing people with the claims. $20 a year isn't sustainable - the service WILL go dark and probably not too far into the future as there are already signs of it.

Some of these "vision changers" think that people are going to simply give up stability for price. It took many years for the cell phone industry to even gain the status that it could be used as the only phone, and even then, people still complain about dropped calls, call clarity, and reliability.

MJ is hardly a phone service at all. Just becuase it can 'make a phone call' doesn't make it a phone service.. at best, as it stands, MJ is largely a techies toy.

Continue to use it, rave about it, praise it's ability to fit your needs, but DON'T call it phone service. I would NEVER port my primary, established, or important phone number to any company that doesn't stand behind its product or is held to standards by any authority that will ensure they are a sustainable provider.

To be honest, if government EVER did one thing right, they'd bar ANYONE from providing "phone service" or a service called "dial tone" to the end user in this country unless they followed rules and had oversight by the FCC. Phone service in the US is just FAR too important to allow children to hawk a service to the consumer made to believe that what they are getting is "phone service" which is largely compared to that of the likes of a reliable POTS service.

my 2-cents

said by aaronwt :

I dropped my land line a few months ago to use my cell phone as my primary service.
...
For 911 service I will be using my cell phone, although I've never had to use 911. I've had to call the police and fire dept. before, but not in a life threatening situation, so 911 wouldn't apply to those situations. You use the regular number instead of tying up 911 service like most of the calls they receive for 911 that aren't really emergencies.

said by elray :

Except that your cell phone 911 will not work, and "the regular number" WILL NOT WORK when you have that life-threatening situation.

I have the unfortunate opportunity to test these facilities more often than I'd like. Cell-phone 911 is not viable (yet). Dialing the PSAP directly is hit-n-miss, in other words, you can literally "die trying".

Are you willing risk your life for $17 a month?
(That's what we pay for Verizon POTS).

said by elray :

Except that your cell phone 911 will not work, and "the regular number" WILL NOT WORK when you have that life-threatening situation.

I have the unfortunate opportunity to test these facilities more often than I'd like. Cell-phone 911 is not viable (yet). Dialing the PSAP directly is hit-n-miss, in other words, you can literally "die trying".

Are you willing risk your life for $17 a month?
(That's what we pay for Verizon POTS).

said by wwdubbia :

show me your Verizon bill for $17 and I'll believe you. You're flat rate plan is probably $17, but then you need to add your line cost on top of that, plus taxes/fees.

It's probably more like $50 after taxes.

said by hescominsoon :

typical fear mongering. I have nothing but cell phones and 911 has always worked just fine. I have had a couple of major accidents befall my family in the wintertime and the cell phone has always worked. I can tell you right now if there is a big enough calamity to take out all of the cell towers in my area the landlines are going to be gone as well(think katrina..landlines did you no good there..it was the HAM operators that saved the comm day there).