Magicjack: Unlimited Calls To U.s. And Canada For $20 A Year

[lomatopo]

Are most people using a standard analog hand-set? I assume the Magic Jack provides the required voltage? And I assume it provides the analog hand-set with "dial-tone"? Can you alternatively use a headphone/mic combination? If so, does the software offer some sort of dial-pad? When you dial a number do you use 1 and the area code, or just the 10 digits? Any issues with DTMF tone generation ("press 1 for customer service")? How is the voice-mail experience? Can you create a personalized greeting? Can you choose to forward all calls to v-mail?

BTW, passing CPID is really important for the automatic activation of a new credit card (you have to be calling from the phone number associated with your account), and for many other specialized customer service apps. so it's nice to know this works.

[Pakaty]

This thread just caught my eye because I have a Magicjack. And after reading all the posts, many positive, some skeptical and some negative. I see that no person has posted and said that they have one and it sucks. I have one. It does NOT suck. It does what it claims to do.

$39.95 buys the product + one year of service, unlimited calls via internet to and within the USA and Canada. People within the area code you select can call you for free via a normal telephone. People in other area codes and other countries pay the normal fee for that area code you select. Not all area codes are available. Many, most, really mostly all popular codes are available and as Magicjack negotiates with local telephone companies for phone numbers and access rites many more area codes are becoming available. You can change your Magicjack area code 1 time for free if a code you perfer becomes available. Available codes are listed on thier website.

All this info is on thier website. For me the FAQ section answered all my questions as well most if not all the questiions I have seen on this thread. I went through the Magicjack site thoroughly before I bought it.

As for the 30 day free trial, my credit card was charged a $1 authorization fee from the time I ordered it (I assume to verify that the card number I gave them was legit). That charge was removed after about a week. It was not until 30 days after I had received and activated my Magicjack that my card was charged $44.95 an extra $5 for shipping. At first I was annoyed as I did not expect the additional $5 charge. However, after using it trouble free for 6 months I am more than happy that I made the purchase.

Customer service and support...I don't know. I have not needed them. I have 2 laptops and 2 desktops. It works fine on all my computers.

Return policy...I don't know. If anything, I would buy another.

I have used it with a normal telephone and a cordless phone but I mostly use it with my computer headset and mic without a telephone. All work fine. Also, using a wifi laptop works fine. I think I need to get a bluetooth headset for the most convienience.

You need a connection speed of at least 80kbs. Dial up connections do not provide that speed. They say that the technology is not VOIP based and does not require as much bandwidth as VOIP. As we all know sometimes our advertised internet connection speeds are not what we are truely getting. I find that due to the time difference between Thailand and America I am either calling the states late at night or early in the morning, not during peek usage times. So, I get pretty good connections. I do at times (maybe 10% of my calls) have cutouts, meaning i may not hear a word or a sentence here and there during a call. Redialing usualy fixes this. I am sure this is due to my internet connection. I did not experience the cutouts during the 2 weeks I tested Magicjack using cable modem in America before I returned to Thailand. Here in Phuket I am using the cheapest package available from TT&T, it is the 590 Baht Indy which is not recomended for international web surfing and I find the service for this package quite good and I have no complaints about TT&T. By comparison my nextdoor neighbor is also using TT&T and he says that for his Skype to work he needs the 2000 Baht Premire package.

I used to dial 009 or 007 on my cell and talk maybe 30 - 60 minutes at a cost of somthing like 150 -300 baht at a time. I used to think that was a reasonable and fair price considering it costs 5 to 10 times as much to call from America to Thailand. Now I am talking to family and friends much more often and they are even calling me now that they are dialing a USA phone number. So the savings is two fold and not just yours. Friends and family save as well. And for them it is easy to use. Just pick up a phone and dial. My magicjack is not pluged in and turned on 24/7, but that is where the voicemail comes in. I works just like a home answering machine.

As for the voicemail, you can record your own greeting and change it when you want. You can access your voicemail through the Magicjack computer interface or from another phone by dialing your phone number pressing star then entering your PIN which you create and can change anytime. My voicemails are also fowarded to my email as a .wav file. So you can retrieve voicemails quite easily even without your Magicjack.

Even if Magicjack went out of business next week I still will have gotten my money's worth. As for the yearly service fee, it is fair. They are providing a sevice after all. And, lets all be realistic sevice fees for our utilities are always going up in cost. And Magicjack's fees may go up as well. I could have paid for an extra year or more at purchase time and locked in a lower service fee but I wanted to evaluate it first. I can tell you that in 6 months when my year is up, if it is still working this good I will buy a 2 or more year sevice package. I could buy more time now but I'm going to wait the full year and see if service remains the same even though the rates may go up, $20 a year now. 25, 30, 40 Dollars next year? For me still worth it. It is cheaper than my anual internet or phone landline or cell service!

So? Does anyone have one and not like it?

[MMR]

All of this talk has gotten me interested.

I bought one last week.

Looking forward to testing it out.

[jfchandler]

Are most people using a standard analog hand-set? I assume the Magic Jack provides the required voltage? And I assume it provides the analog hand-set with "dial-tone"?

Using a standard tone-dial phone with no separate AC connection. I'd assume it would work just fine/the same with a powered phone model.

Can you alternatively use a headphone/mic combination? If so, does the software offer some sort of dial-pad?

Yes to both. The MJ software has a built-in dial pad you can access from your desktop, or just pick up and dial your own phone. The MJ software also allows you to change its setting for use with a headphone/mic combination.

When you dial a number do you use 1 and the area code, or just the 10 digits? Any issues with DTMF tone generation ("press 1 for customer service")?

The tones/responses work fine for me.

How is the voice-mail experience?

The MJ software pad has a voicemail button that shows a light when you have any message waiting. Whenever you get a voicemail, the system sends an email notice to your email address of record. You can access/play voicemail messages either directly from your phone by entering a 4-digit pin number or by clicking the link in the notification email.

[lomatopo]

I'm back in the U.S.A. for a brief visit and have installed the magicJack h/w & s/w. I have to say it is quite impressive. It took all of 5 minutes to get a local number and to start making and receiving calls. The unit does pass CPID, DTMF tones work, you can use any standard analog telephone hand-set or a PC-attached mic/speaker, the voice-mail system is very impressive with the ability to change your password, record multiple greetings and even receive voicemails as WAV files in emails (takes 3 to 10 minutes to receive). Call quality is OK, am not sure how much processing is being done with hardware vs. software? The unit is bascially an ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter).

So all in all, actually a bit better than I expected, will follow-up with a report on my experiences in Thailand when I return in a few days.

[jfchandler]

Glad it's working well for you thus far, Lom....

One thing I hadn't mentioned previously...since all my focus here before was on using the MJ in Thailand to call back to the U.S.....

But also, for us U.S. folks who periodically travel back to the U.S. for business or family obligations, the easily carried MJ can likewise be used for free and unlimited domestic calls in the U.S. to any # in the U.S. or Canada.

So, it makes for a very cost effective alternative to the sometimes ridiculously expensive phone rates that many U.S. hotels and chains try to extort from their guests...especially any non-local calls to other area codes or states from your hotel room.

On my recent trips back to the U.S., I simply carried my laptop and MJ unit together, and plugged it in as soon as I settled in a hotel (which was always chosen on the basis of having free broadband included). From that point on, I never even picked up a hotel phone.

All my outbound calls from my hotel rooms were made with MJ. And of course, my U.S. area code MJ number in Thailand is the name number when I'm using the MJ in the U.S. (that being the number of my choice that I've selected when signing up for MJ) so thus all my family and friends already know the number. They call the same one, regardless of whether I'm away in Thailand or staying locally in a hotel.

Perfect....

PS - I must confess, I never had any connection/call quality problems when using the MJ with U.S. hotel broadband networks -- unlike Thailand, where pretty much no one gets the promised Internet speeds they have subscribed for, particularly for international connections during peak use times here in LOS. If only the international bandwidth capacity here was only half as reliable....

[sabaijai]

I've ordered magicjack and will be picking the unit up in LA in a few days.

Someone said something about MJ charging your credit card before the order was complete. Didn't happen when I ordered online. I was told the card would only be charged on the 31st day following the order. The amount was authorized on the credit card, but appears as 'pending' on the statement, not charged until the end of the free trial period.

[Canada]

Can you call a cell phone in Thailand from the US? That would be worth $40

I use a service called Yak for this. From Vancouver to a cell in Thailand for $.06 a minute, Pretty good reliable quality.

Google Yak. I am in Canada....don't know about the States

[jfchandler]

Just a new wrinkle/feature about using the MagicJack device...

Tonight, I needed to fax a document to the U.S., and was not really interested to use my True home phone line (02...) to make a long distance fax call to the U.S. So, I thought... what about my Magic Jack... I wonder....

And sure enough, there is some discussion about faxing in the Magic Jack FAQ section at their web site, which basically says...faxing is not officially supported, but it may be possible...and urging people to use a low speed setting in their fax settings.

So, I tried it tonight and it seemed to work using three pieces of equipment: 1) my fax/scan printer, 2) the fax modem in my PC, and 3) the MagicJack device as my phone line...

Basically, it involved making two different phone cable connections from my printer using the RJ11 jacks on the back: one between the printer and the fax modem on my PC, and the second between the printer and the phone jack on the Magic Jack device still plugged into a USB port. My printer manual had specific instructions for connecting the printer to the fax modem of the PC, so I just followed those. Only difference was, where it talked about connecting one phone cable to the wall jack, I just substituted the MJ jack instead.

Did that, went into my printer faxing software, ordered up a fax that I had already started by scanning the documents I wanted to fax, and hit send. And sure enough, the MagicJack device software opened up, and began faxing (via phone call) to my intended recipient.

I'm not sure this is foolproof by any means, particularly when the line connection or noise on the line may cause problems. But at least it seems its technically possible. Maybe others of you MJ users can give it a try yourselves, and report back how it works (or didn't) for you.

PS.... I should have mentioned... to try this... of course you need to temporarily unplug whatever regular phone instrument you currently have plugged into the MJ box, and instead, temporarily plug in one of the phone cables connecting to your fax printer.

Edited October 14, 2008 by jfchandler

[GrahamF]

I am thinking about purchasing an MJ for myself and one for a family member who lives in China. I appreciate all the info here so far, any updates on peoples MJ experiences? Thanks in advance.

[CDNinKS]

I have a MJ here in Thailand and I am very impressed......I use it both for outgoing and incoming calls to Canada. I am not sure what you mean by "for a family member in China". The MJ only works between North America and the rest of the world. Not between Thailand and China.

[alstaxi]

I have a MJ here in Thailand and I am very impressed......I use it both for outgoing and incoming calls to Canada. I am not sure what you mean by "for a family member in China". The MJ only works between North America and the rest of the world. Not between Thailand and China.

The magic jack works anywhere in the world, period,Thailand and China are not out of this world.

[jfchandler]

Assuming you have the correct computer setup...you can MAKE FREE calls from anywhere in the world TO any phone numbers in the U.S. and Canada...using Magic Jack...

And... people anywhere in the world can call your Magic Jack number, which typically will have a U.S. area code that the Magic Jack user has selected. In my case, I picked a number with the same area code as my parents, so they can always call me here in Thailand as a local/no cost call for them.

[lannarebirth]

I have a MJ here in Thailand and I am very impressed......I use it both for outgoing and incoming calls to Canada. I am not sure what you mean by "for a family member in China". The MJ only works between North America and the rest of the world. Not between Thailand and China.

The magic jack works anywhere in the world, period,Thailand and China are not out of this world.

You may be saying the same thing. MagicJack works for calls TO America and Canada FROM anywhere in the world.

[GrahamF]

I have a MJ here in Thailand and I am very impressed......I use it both for outgoing and incoming calls to Canada. I am not sure what you mean by "for a family member in China". The MJ only works between North America and the rest of the world. Not between Thailand and China.

My brother lives full time in China, I spend time in Thailand but the majority in the USA. This would be for him to call me when I am in the USA or for me to call his "USA number".

Here's a question though, if I am in Thailand and he is China and we both have the MJ wouldn't the call be at no charge as we are calling numbers located in the States??

[alstaxi]

I have a MJ here in Thailand and I am very impressed......I use it both for outgoing and incoming calls to Canada. I am not sure what you mean by "for a family member in China". The MJ only works between North America and the rest of the world. Not between Thailand and China.

My brother lives full time in China, I spend time in Thailand but the majority in the USA. This would be for him to call me when I am in the USA or for me to call his "USA number".

Here's a question though, if I am in Thailand and he is China and we both have the MJ wouldn't the call be at no charge as we are calling numbers located in the States??

yes thats correct, it will be free, when you plug your magic jack into a computer ,with a high speed connection, you are in the states, wherever you picked your number,even if you are physically in china ,or wherever.You can also buy international minutes from magic jack with your credit card, they keep the number on file when you buy the magic jack, a little worrisome, to make cheaper than skype calls to any where in the world to any phone. If you are calling someone ,not in the usa, on a regular basis, it would be cheaper for them to get a magic jack, then calls are free whereever you are.

[jfchandler]

Hadn't really thought about that approach before... But... I'd say... YES YOU CAN...

If two people both have Magic Jack numbers (meaning U.S. area code numbers), and they wanted to call each other (going either way), I'd assume that would work under the Magic Jack system, since each phone would see the other as a U.S.-based number.

Never tried it, but, I'd like to know the outcome.

[CDNinKS]

I have a MJ here in Thailand and I am very impressed......I use it both for outgoing and incoming calls to Canada. I am not sure what you mean by "for a family member in China". The MJ only works between North America and the rest of the world. Not between Thailand and China.

My brother lives full time in China, I spend time in Thailand but the majority in the USA. This would be for him to call me when I am in the USA or for me to call his "USA number".

Here's a question though, if I am in Thailand and he is China and we both have the MJ wouldn't the call be at no charge as we are calling numbers located in the States??

You know, that is a very good question......I have never had an opportunity to use that situation, but on paper there doesn't seem to be any reason why it won't work. Let us know how you make out with that.

[jaideeguy]

I've had Magicjack for almoat a year now and am mostly pleased with it and hardly use Skype anymore....it's paid for it's self already.

Lately tho, I've been getting a lot of dropped calls during mid conversation and have attributed it to my erratic maxnet, but today after a dropped call and not being able to return call i checked my maxnet speeds and they were up, but still cannot call out on MJ.

Any ideas or solutions?/ Anyone else having the same problems??

[CDNinKS]

Every once in a while I do get some wierd things happening with MJ. For example there are times when I have a dial tone but can not call anyone. I do a restart (from the menu) and then all is well again.......

[jfchandler]

Current MJ renewal pricing/offer....

[Martian]

After losing my job last April after 22 years of service I immediately went into the cost saving mode. One thing I did was to dump my VoiP phone carrier ($28.99 per month) and purchased this Magic Jack device and 5 years of service and haven't looked back. $20 per year vs. $30 per MONTH is a no-brainer as long as you have the internet connection and don't need the antiquated fax line. At times there have been a few call quality issues but easy to put up with considering the cost. It will be coming with me to Thailand in about 10 days.

Regards

[CDNinKS]

I've had Magicjack for almoat a year now and am mostly pleased with it and hardly use Skype anymore....it's paid for it's self already.

Lately tho, I've been getting a lot of dropped calls during mid conversation and have attributed it to my erratic maxnet, but today after a dropped call and not being able to return call i checked my maxnet speeds and they were up, but still cannot call out on MJ.

Any ideas or solutions?/ Anyone else having the same problems??

I was having a lot of problems.....dropped calls, calls going on hold by themself, MJ rebooting, etc. This was after the latest upgrade. I contacted MJ live help. They advised me to delete the program and let it reinstall.

unplug your MJ then go to START>RUN> Application Data then delete the file mjusbsp. Then plug the MJ back in and let it re-install. Seems fine now.

[inquisitive]

I am possibly jumping into this discussion many months too late, but maybe some of this info will be usefull:

1) I don't know if they still handle it, but I bought my MJ at Radio Shack early in 2009 and thus saved the shipping cost.

2) The place for me where the MJ really shines is when I am on the road. So long as I can get a braodband connection I can usually even use the built-in microphone and speakers on my notebook to make calls. I say "usually" because some places with free internet access (such as Pantera's bread and sandwich shopsin the USA) block MJ. There may be a way around this blocking, but every time I have run into it I did not have time to fiddle around to see if I could stumble on a work-around. On the positive side, whatver country I might be in, the call is made the same as if I were sitting in New York. Now if I could only do something to fix the time zone disparity...!

3) For those that don't find the MJ a good fit, you might want to look into LocalPhone (www.localphone.com). Localphone won't work for calls originating in Thailand, but the rates from the USA (and a few other countries such as the UK) are pretty nice. Anywhere in the USA calling to anywhere in Thailand - including mobile phones - is just one cent per minute. There are other ways to use this, but if you know in advance the numbers from which the calls to Thailand will be made, then you list those numbers with LocalPhone. Then you also tell LocalPhone what the possible destination numbers will be in Thailand (or wherever). LocalPhone then gives you a "local" number in the country of your choice for the destinations you registered. So to use the service, the caller merely dials the local number you were assigned and they are connected. The person calling would have no clue that they are calling Thailand. So far as they can tell, they are dialing a normal local number. No muss, no fuss once it is set up, and pretty darn cheap as well. Sadly, the company has no local numbers in Thailand, so when I am there I can't use the service for calling out. Calls in, however, even to my mobile phone when I am upcountry are a mere one cent per minute, and I can buy time in blocks as small as a dollar.

[crev]

I also use MagicJack but its was my sisters MJ and she just gave it to me because she doesn't like the connection. It has a few months left in it and I use it as a back up for my main long distance service ( voip and calling card ) which is Onesuite.

Local phone seems to be a nice option too.

Edited December 8, 2009 by crev

[JibJab]

New Majicjack FOR SALE

If you want one ASAP I have one in a package never used or activated and I will sell it to you for what it cost me. So you just take it home put it in your USB and as long as you have internet connection you will be able to pick a number and that's how hard it is. I'm in Chiang Mai and I use my other one everyday.

[DocDuei]

I use MajicJack in the U.S. and it works fine. But I can not get MajicJack to work here in Pattaya. I get a dial tone but it won't connet to any number. Maybe because I am using the Hutch Wireless Service. Any suggestions?