Magic Jack Phone Service
"I've seen commercials for Magic Jack, a device you can plug into your computer for really cheap phone service. It sounds too good to be true, so... is there a catch or is Magic Jack a scam?"
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Is Magic Jack a Scam?
Yes, the commercial for Magic Jack is a bit cheesy and I'll admit my first impression was that this is probably just another "As Seen on TV" device, or maybe even a scam of some sort.
The website is rather gaudy. You're greeted with praise from television and newspaper stories, and a video featuring the inventor and his daughter plays automatically. A bright orange block of text warns that there are "only 20,000 available" and that the offer expires today. Relax, that same hype was there yesterday, and will be there tomorrow.
However, after doing some research, and hearing a couple of my friends swear by the gadget, it seems that Magic Jack really does deliver what it promises -- even if the marketing is classic infomercial gimmickry. For $39.95, you get the Magic Jack, your own number with unlimited local and long distance (USA and Canada), and your first year of service. Subsequent years are only $19.95 each. That's all you pay... you never get a phone bill, because you can cancel your service with the phone company and cut them out of the loop.
You can try MagicJack with a free 30-day trial. So it might be worth checking out if you want to get rid of your landline, or get bad reception inside with your cell phone. You also get free caller ID, call waiting, voicemail and directory assistance with the 30 day trial. Note that there are extra charges for some of these features after the free trial.Another benefit that many readers have mentioned is international calling. If you take the Magic Jack with you when you travel, you can call any phone in the US for free. And people can reach YOU by calling a US number. Also, if you have a family member who lives outside the US, and they have a reliable Internet connection, this can be a significant savings on overseas long-distance fees.
How Does Magic Jack Work?
Magic Jack was invented by Dan Borislow, who formerly ran a long-distance company called Talk America. He describes Magic Jack as "a wireless client with a network adapter in a single device which allows a telephone to connect to a network access point for the purpose of establishing Voice over IP." So in that sense, Magic Jack is similar to other Internet Telephony services like Vonage or Skype, which allow you to make phone calls over the Internet.
The unique thing about Magic Jack is that it plugs directly into your computer. In a nutshell, you hook up your existing telephone to one end of the device and the other into your USB port. MagicJack works with Windows XP/Vista and Intel-based Mac computers, you must have a high speed connection, such as DSL, cable or fiber. Your phone works the same for dialing out and receiving calls, no special access codes or prefixes are needed.
One minor downside, you can't use your existing telephone number with Magic Jack. In most cases, they will assign you a new number in your area code, but the company says that some time in 2009, they should be able to port customers' existing telephone numbers into Magic Jack. If you want to avoid the hassle of changing your phone number, you can try a service called Phone Number Bank which lets you forward incoming calls for your existing number to your Magic Jack number. Phone Number Bank costs $9.95 a month, but it's a good solution if you want to keep your existing phone number and still use Magic Jack.
This might also be a fine idea for travelers as it can be used in any computer and as a secondary service for a business. College students who have cell phones can pull the old one ring trick and parents can call back, saving them both a few bucks. And of course you can call forward to your cell phone and vice versa. Setting the magicJack up seems simple enough, with most reports I read saying it took 5 minutes or less.
Magic Jack Problems?
One of my friends who has had the Magic Jack for several months says he and his wife use the phone a lot, and voice quality is excellent. The only glitch they encountered was that calls seem to be dropped after 60 minutes. That bothers his wife, but he considers it a useful feature. :-) You can find plenty of other people who swear that the Magic Jack is wonderful, if you poke around on Google.
As for the cons, some customers have complained that they had terrible sound quality some of the time. If a screensaver comes up during a call or there's a glitch in your Internet service, transmission may be interrupted. If you use a bandwidth-intensive P2P service such as Bittorrent or Limewire, you may experience some voice quality issues while downloading large files. The same applies if someone is using the computer to play a game or some other task that places a high load on the processor. But if you have a solid high-speed internet connection and a fairly decent computer, voice quality or dropped calls shouldn't be an issue.
Others have complained they had to restart their computer each morning to get their MagicJack to work, while some had customer service problems, anywhere from not helping to overcharging to difficulty using their automated phone order processing. Some people are concerned that the Magic Jack privacy policy allows the company to serve ads to your computer, but apparently they are not doing so at this time.
So there are both pros and cons to the device, but I can say that it's definitely not a scam, and works well for most people as a landline replacement. At least you have that free trial. But make sure you grab it quick... there are only 19,999 left today. Do you have a Magic Jack? Post your comments below...
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Posted by Bob Rankin on January 30, 2009 09:22 PM
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Article information: AskBobRankin -- Magic Jack Phone Service (Posted: January 30, 2009 09:22 PM)
Printed from: http://askbobrankin.com/magic_jack_phone_service.html
Copyright © 2005 - Bob Rankin - All Rights Reserved
Most recent comments on "Magic Jack Phone Service"
(See all 192 comments for this article.)Posted by:
Carlos
30 Oct 2009
I've used the Magic Jack and yes it has its pros and its cons. I have noticed though if you have a home network as I do that magic jack does not work as well on a computer over wifi than just having it on a computer with a ethernet connection. Now I have seen alot of complaints about magic jack and well for the 19.95 a year what more can you ask for. No line charges, no federal communications taxes tagged on and all that crap phone companies add to your bill. For the most part i get good call quality while not using my computer at the same time i'm making the call. So is you want a cheapo service and save some money and not expect the world, MagicJack is for you...if you want uninteruppted service use you local phone company. BTW, using VOIP service from you local cable company is great, but if the net goes down so does the service...that has been my experience with using Cable telephone service...With all their hoopla about having a back up batterie lmao...having a backup battery and internet service down defeats the purpose the the backup battery :/.
Posted by:
Jose M. Martin
30 Oct 2009
With the majic jack can i get a spain phone #
EDITOR'S NOTE: No.
Posted by:
j jensen
02 Nov 2009
I tried three mj and none worked on XP Pro. All ports are good,Is there way to hook a 2nd computer up to same connections and try that.
Posted by:
Matthew
03 Nov 2009
I have had the magic jack for a couple weeks now with a few minor issues. The biggest was I tried to unplug it, reboot, and then plug it back in and it would come up, it would freeze my computer or eventually say there is nothing plugged in. I found out some burning software conflicts, so I uninstalled that, uninstalled my firewall software (just in case I blocked a service), enabled Windows XP firewall, and finally cleaned up my registry. After this it came up again. I have had at least three calls out of say 20 drop after only 5 to 10 minutes, not sure what is going on here. I have measured 322kbps upload and they require 128 at a minimum. I like the idea, not sure my wife is thrilled at the moment.
Posted by:
ds
10 Nov 2009
thought the Feds passed a law any telecom company had to let you portage over your number but guess it doesnt apply to majic jack
Posted by:
Glen
13 Nov 2009
I have had MJ for about 1 1/2 years and use it when I travel (about 4 months of the year). Most of the time it works ok but I never know until connection is made. The most common problem I have had is poor audio quality. However, I have also had problems where I could hear the ringing but the phone at the called party did not ring. This occurred several times. Also had an issue where only 1 side of the conversation was present. And, had a great deal of dificulty making a call on Xmas day.
Posted by:
Lawarn Robinson
14 Nov 2009
How do I get my phone number? I can hear the dial tone but when I dial nothing happens.
Posted by:
DR.K.B.SAXENA
16 Nov 2009
Majic jack is responding on laptop but when we dial required number the sound of dialed person is audiable but our voice is not going to the dialed number. IT IS NOT AT ALL WORKING ON MAJIC JACK TELEPHONE CONNTECTION.
Will you kindly comment and solve the problem. Your early action will be highly appreciated.
Posted by:
David M. Miller
20 Nov 2009
My Magic Jack cost me $39.95 plus five years' additional service for $59.95. We use it in our weekend house.
We had been paying maybe $23 per month for basic landline local-only service, plus another $25 or so for long distance service, and both of these were before making any calls.
I signed up for high speed internet with our local cable company for their $30 introductory special for the first year. After that we downgraded to their lower speed offering in order to remain at $30 monthly. NO discernible difference for anything except downloading big files.
Since the computer is too far from the wireless router to run an ethernet cable, I bought a $15 USB WifFi adapter. The machine we are using for this is itself a 2.1 GHz single core AMD running XP Home.
Bottom line: when we arrive for a stay at the house we turn on the cable modem and wireless router and switch on the computer. Within boot time plus maybe a minute (say, 3 minutes total) we have a dial tone.
Although I said weekend house, we occasionally stay there for stretches of time and we have had no problems.
We have never had to reboot the computer or restart the MagicJack software; it just works.
After spending about $110 (with shipping) and I have fully paid-up phone service until 2015.
STRONGLY recommend this!
Posted by:
john rogers
20 Nov 2009
Good Deal
There seems to be a lot of bitching and complaining about MJ but I have to say I have been using mine now in a wide variety of conditions and locations (6 weeks via lousy wifi in Mexico for example) for almost a year. I have found it to be an excellent product. Once when I arrived at my cottage it would not start up. I logged into their web site and tried their "customer service" which I had heard was terrible. I did the whole thing on line and the chap was great. It seems that my cd driver was corrupted (that was why my cd drive would not work - go figure?) and this affected the device. The chap send me a MS link for the new and up to date driver and I did the install and voila both my MJ and my CD were fully functional. This was about 5 months ago and I have not had a problem since. I happen to live in Canada and of course we do not have Canadian numbers available but when I go away anywhere I simply forward my Vonage service to the US MJ number and life goes on. I am a little concerned that they are actually making money on the venture as I plan on purchasing their 5 year plan for 59 bucks (about 1 month for basic service where I live) and I would hate to see them go down. No you wife might not like it cuz sometimes its not perfect and like the previous writer said it will often drop a call after a while :-) - I see that as an automatic bonus not a technical problem! Face it guys "they" do not appreciate our toys. Get used to it.
Go Magic Jack Go