new internet based telephone

Frank Fusco

Member
Messages
12,782
Location
Mountain Home, Arkansas
I just installed a Magic Jack for an Internet based telephone. The phone is at my desk but I bought a cordless handset so we can use it around the house.
The sound quality is not 100% but OK. First year cost is $39.95 and $19.95 a year after that. And they offer a five year rate that is much less. There is a 30 day free trial but I think I'll keep. All calls are free. I'm trying to talk the wife into letting us drop the land line phone as, these days, I believe it to be an unnecessary expense. Each have a cell phone and now this. The MJ phone does connect with local 911 service.
I'm not the oldest person in the world, but I did start school with a dip ink pen. And now something like this. What next? Wait a week and we'll see.

http://www.magicjack.com/1/index.asp
 
How do you get a phone number for your phone, Frank? That is, if someone wants to call you, what number do they call?

I assume someone can call you from a regular phone (like a cell phone) and you can call people with regular phones. Is that correct?

How do they route your 911 call to the local 911 people and tell the local 911 people where you are? That was a problem Vonage had in the early days.

Mike
 
How do you get a phone number for your phone, Frank? That is, if someone wants to call you, what number do they call?

I assume someone can call you from a regular phone (like a cell phone) and you can call people with regular phones. Is that correct?

How do they route your 911 call to the local 911 people and tell the local 911 people where you are? That was a problem Vonage had in the early days.

Mike

The number is assigned. The only choice was area code. Based on home address, Magic Jack sets up for the 911.
Anybody can call us on this phone. So far, I've given the number only to relatives. Will wait a few days before giving to others in case, for some reason, I decide not to keep it. I think I'll be keeping, though.
 
I knew someone that had MJ but they couldn't get a local area coded number their area code & number were for somewhere back east not a west coast Washington number & MJ couldn't tell them when would get a local number. He finally forced the issue & made them give a refund & sent the MJ back. This was about 6 months ago. Kinda hard to receive a local call with a long distance number.
 
I've been running MJ for sometime now and find it quite acceptable. Like Frank said "it's not 100%" but it works fine for me, for the price. Bart, it might have been me you were thinking about as far as the area code assignments. They didn't have any 808 area codes yet and assigned me a Portland, Oregon area code. It's no biggy to me as we use it primarily for out going calls only. It comes packed with a lot of free features and would be worth the time to look into if you're in the market for cheap long distance service. By the way I wouldn't have gotten this as we have so many free minutes on the cell phone but we have very poor reception at our home.
 
One thing to keep in mind Frank - if you lose your 'net connection for some reason - or if the power goes down - it takes your phone with it, unlike a land line.

I have this installed myself - and agree the quality is nothing to write home about, but it IS a heck of a lot cheaper than a Phone Co. land line.

-Kevin in Indy
 
One thing to keep in mind Frank - if you lose your 'net connection for some reason - or if the power goes down - it takes your phone with it, unlike a land line.

I have this installed myself - and agree the quality is nothing to write home about, but it IS a heck of a lot cheaper than a Phone Co. land line.

-Kevin in Indy

I understand that. During the recent ice storm, our cell phones were our only contact with the outside world for three days.
 
telephones, telephones everywhere

Well, after having the Magic Jack phone for a while, I can report that I am completely happy with it. The less than quality sound was traced to the new telephone I bought. It was replaced and the sound is excellent now. In addition, I contacted the land line telephone company, and after two conversations, had our service cut back to basic-basic. We went from about $50.00 a month to $15.00. We had been paying the extra to get 'discount' long distance, 15 cents per minute. With the basic package we will have to pay 20 cents per min. I feel I have been ripped all the years I paid that. But, the deal is, with cell phones and Magic Jack we won't be making any long distance calls with that service from now on. I added a charger-only extension from the land line to our TV room. That give a total of six phones on the land line, one on Magic Jack and two cell phones. Sounds nuts but is really a matter of convenience and money savings. There was an initial investment but that will be recovered in less than two months.
Downside: two of the phones rang at the same time while I was typing this.
Oh, well. ;)
 
We've had MJ for over a year and it's been perfect for us. We didn't have a land line to begin with as we were paying so much for our cell phones that we didn't want to cough up the extra for a land line. Unfortunately, a lot of the applications you fill out for various things require a home phone number. For places we trusted we used our cell phone #s but for places we didn't, well, we didn't want to get all kinds of marketing calls on our cell phones just because we bought a new hair curler for the LOML. I was one of the early ones, when MJ didn't have any numbers available in Oklahoma. By using another service from Google called Grandcentral (www.grandcentral.com), I was able to get a number with a 405 area code and forward that to the MJ number. That way folks that called me on a local call would still get in touch with me on the MJ phone. I even had a little utility that spoofed my outgoing number so that it showed up as a 405 number on caller ID even though it was a 214 (Dallas) area code.

Jiminy, can you tell that I make my living as a geek now a days? ;)
 
We cut loose of the land line last weekend. It's been really quiet around here without it, but it wasn't too hard to let go of the number. Anyone we really wanted to talk to knows to call our cells. I did get a skype number to replace it ($60 per year) for a "home" phone number. I also found a device to plugin to the computer to use a regular phone. Got it as a refurb for $10 from DLink. Still need to get it setup.

I was looking at phonepower.com for replacing the landline. They just finished a special where you keep your number, get all the cool stuff (caller id/waiting/etc.), and get a cloned line (basically gives you two separate lines but one number) for $11 per month if you paid one year up front. Might still look at them if we feel the need to go back to a regular phone. Also had E911 service and equipment was included in that price.
 
We cut loose of the land line last weekend. It's been really quiet around here without it, but it wasn't too hard to let go of the number. Anyone we really wanted to talk to knows to call our cells. I did get a skype number to replace it ($60 per year) for a "home" phone number. I also found a device to plugin to the computer to use a regular phone. Got it as a refurb for $10 from DLink. Still need to get it setup.

I was looking at phonepower.com for replacing the landline. They just finished a special where you keep your number, get all the cool stuff (caller id/waiting/etc.), and get a cloned line (basically gives you two separate lines but one number) for $11 per month if you paid one year up front. Might still look at them if we feel the need to go back to a regular phone. Also had E911 service and equipment was included in that price.



I have a feeling we ain't seen nuttin' yet when it comes to communication. :eek:
 
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