can anyone tell me what you know about magic jack phone system?
Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at
12:39 am
does magic jack phone system work or not???? i would like to try it if it works cause i could save a lot of money on my phone bill but dont want to waste the money if it is a rip off thanks for your input david
Filed under: Business Phone Systems
I fell for the hype of the magic jack and found it to be completely unacceptable.
It sufferers from a serious case of "slippage".
In the phone world, slippage is the loss of syncronization between nodes. This loss of sync causes echoes. The magic jack is only magicial because people pay for this!
I tried this dongle on a couple different computers, on a couple different networks. It did not matter if I was on a T1 or a xDSL, it still echoed.
I also noticed that after a couple days, it stopped receiving inbound calls. I had to unplug the dongle, and plug it back in, to allow it to reboot.
It is an interesting toy, but nothing to be taken serious.
not a rip off.. totally worth $40 for the device, and $20 a year for the service..
it is not a good replacement for landline service, but it is great to supliment your existing service – as a secondary means of communication…
it does not support data/fax, so will not work with alarm systems, or satellite boxes that require a phone line…
it requires your PC to be on and connected to high speed internet to be able to use the phone…
the call quality may be affected by your internet speed, jitter and latency…. and also the resources of your PC… if your CPU is being used up by other programs, the quality of service will be reduced until those programs no longer are using up your CPU…
I have a MJ in my laptop computer case. When I’m on the road, I use it to communicate back home during the day if I want to save cell minutes. I got it a couple of years ago, so it came with the killer price of maybe $20 plus $50 for 5 years of service. I think mine runs out in 2013.
We set up a couple of MJ’s in a motel for the manager and his "buddies" to call long distance. He has 2 PC’s at the front desk running them, and it works. It’s a dial "8" long distance code on his phone system.
I have a real landline, 2 VoIP services and the MJ. I would never drop the landline or a VoIP line for a MJ. The MJ requires a full time computer and the features are not as robust as those services. You can’t remove Voice Mail, you can’t set up simultaneous ring, you don’t get call records, etc. etc.
What you may be able to do, is cut your land line service back to bare bones and make your outbound calls on the MJ. In some offerings, you can reduce your basic LL bill to under $20 a month, almost like a lifeline.
Carl
P.S. Hey Bob, tell us what you "really" think. LOL