Thoughts on Magic Jack??

I used one for a few years, it was like having a real phone line. plus Its kinda cool to be able to take it any place you can plug into internet and have your phone if you need.

The only issue I ever had was I think it disconnects you after an hour and you have to reconnect.

Hated mine, lots of telemarketers, and getting call at 2 am was too much

We've had it for about 2 years. No problems at all. Just like a regular phone except that we lose it when we lose internet. But that rarely happens. I will never go back to paying a monthly phone bill. And we don't get any more telemarketers calling than we did before we had Magic Jack. We "ported" our previous phone number over to Magic Jack, so we continued with the same number we have always had.

My wife and I are currently stationed in Germany since July. Picked up one of these in August so my kids and family can call us via a stateside tel # without the international charges. We can do the same.

German Internet can be slow and we have DSL with a maximum throughput of 4 mbps. We live in a farming village in the country, so have no other options. Darned thing works like a champ. My brother-in-law was stationed in Belgium a few years back and they had an earlier version that had problems, plus needed a dedicated computer. It's been updated since then. Every once in a while I have to hang up and redial but honestly, it works better than my Sprint cell phone did in the US. It's a small powered network interface card in a box and plugs directly into my router...don't need a dedicated computer which is nice. Phone plugs directly into the MJ. Skype has always worked for me in the past but I hate being on camera. Also comes with voicemail and I get an email with an attachment, so don't really need a phone.

I also have their Android app and can make/receive calls via wifi when I'm traveling. No need to carry the MJ. Was skiing in Zermatt, Switzerland, over the 3 day weekend and was able to call from our hotel during breakfast using my tablet, while looking at the Matterhorn...technology is cool! If you have a smart phone it's just like using normal cel.

Haven't had any solicitation calls. Two unknown numbers but I don't answer if I don't recognize it. I could've ported my cel number but didn't want to pay extra. Paid in advance and received a multi year discount.

That's my 2 cents. Hope it helps.

John

Cheapest/best in my opinion is to get an Obihai box and use free Google Voice. If you aren't concerned about 911, then it is totally free for calls within the US/Canada. If you need 911, then you can add that for about $15 a year.

I've been using the Obi110 for about 3 years now. The cheapest one (Obi100) is less than $45 from Amazon. Hook to router, hook to cordless phone. Setup with Google voice chat and your done. I just use Google voice for voicemail so no need for traditional answering machine either.

Discussion here:
http://www.obihai.com/googlevoice

teekay0007 wrote: »

billbillw wrote: »

Cheapest/best in my opinion is to get an Obihai box and use free Google Voice. If you aren't concerned about 911, then it is totally free for calls within the US/Canada. If you need 911, then you can add that for about $15 a year.

I've been using the Obi110 for about 3 years now. The cheapest one (Obi100) is less than $45 from Amazon. Hook to router, hook to cordless phone. Setup with Google voice chat and your done. I just use Google voice for voicemail so no need for traditional answering machine either.

Discussion here:
http://www.obihai.com/googlevoice

What phone number does one use with this? Can you get it to use your current home phone (ie. now listed with Comcast)? Cell phone number? New number? Also, if it can use your cell phone number, will it ring your cell AND your Obihai phone at the same time?

You use a new Google Voice number. You can use your existing home number, but it is difficult. You have to port to a burner cell, then port to Google Voice. Google Voice will only port from a Cell #.

I was glad to give up the old land line # that I had because 90% of the calls that came to it were telemarketers, political calls, etc. 3 years with a Google Voice number and I still don't get those calls at home.

As for ringing at home, it will ring when your Google Voice # is dialed. You can set it to also ring your Cell, or Work, or any other number.

I don't think you can make it ring your home when your cell is dialed unless you have some forwarding set on your cell.

The idea with Google Voice is that you never need to give out another phone number. Your Google Voice # can follow you and forward to any other number (ie: if your cell changes). You could even forward it to a land line if you so wished.

Google voice also has spam filtering and number blocking. You can go online and mark #s as spam or block. If spam, the go straight to VM which is stored in spam folder. If blocked, they get a generic "number disconnected" message.