# Anyone ever tried out magic jack?



## Juggernaut92 (Aug 9, 2020)

Hello All,

My dad is considering making the leap from typical telecom provider (rogers) to magicJack for a home phone my parents have. To me I have done some initial research and it looks like good value for what it is worth. But wanted to ask if anyone has tried it out on here and how they felt about it? Any issues people run into?

Also, did you buy the device from a store like walmart or amazon or did they go directly through the magic jack website?

any feedback would be appreciated.


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## Retiredguy (Jul 24, 2013)

I started using MJ about 14 yrs ago when I purchased a place in California. I recently sold the place but am maintaining the line as it allows me to call 800/866 #'s in the US from Canada (the MJ is a US area code number) which I may have to do over the next year or 2 and then I will cancel the line. I just 2 weeks ago renewed the line for another year.

Also about 5 years ago I transferred my long time Vancouver area home number to MJ and and will renew it when its due....

A few months ago a relative asked me about MJ. He then transferred his long held Vancouver area number to a MJ and tells me he's very happy with it and the savings versus a Telus landline. Like me he didn't use the landline much but wasn't ready to totally cut it out.

I purchased the MJ's originally from WalMart or Radio shack as I recall.

One thing I particularly like is that if someone leaves a message I get a email. Click on it and it plays the message.

So as you might gather yes I recommend MJ. Others will tout other options......


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## damian13ster (Apr 19, 2021)

Used it for 2 years, but mostly for international calls to relatives that haven't exactly figured out the modern day technology. 
Landline outgoing calls are reliable assuming of course you have good internet connection. Can't comment on incoming calls as haven't really used it.


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## Mortgage u/w (Feb 6, 2014)

You may want to consider Ooma. Similar to Magicjack but I hear it is more reliable and provides better options such as 911 services. I don't have either so I cannot comment - just wanted to inform of other provider.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

Juggernaut92 said:


> Hello All,
> 
> My dad is considering making the leap from typical telecom provider (rogers) to magicJack for a home phone my parents have. To me I have done some initial research and it looks like good value for what it is worth. But wanted to ask if anyone has tried it out on here and how they felt about it? Any issues people run into?
> 
> ...


You don't need to buy a magic jack

You can do VoIP on any smart phone or computer with a headset. Cost is about $1/month to hold a number

I have never had a home phone but I have a VoIP number


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## Gator13 (Jan 5, 2020)

m3s said:


> You don't need to buy a magic jack
> 
> You can do VoIP on any smart phone or computer with a headset. Cost is about $1/month to hold a number
> 
> I have never had a home phone but I have a VoIP number


Excellent comment.

Who do you get your virtual number through?


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## cainvest (May 1, 2013)

m3s said:


> Cost is about $1/month to hold a number





Gator13 said:


> Who do you get your virtual number through?


Yes, where does one sign up to transfer their phone number for $1/mo in Canada?


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## Retiredguy (Jul 24, 2013)

Deleted


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## MrsPartridge (May 15, 2016)

We're using Ooma and it has our old landline phone number. We're saving plenty and of course most of our calls are on our cellphones. I hate that I'm hearing some white noise on the line and it's not crisp like the old landlines were.

To get that MJ feature that emails you when you get a voicemail, I'd have to pay $9.99 a month instead of I think $5.84.

If you're using mostly cellphones to call and only occasional Voip then it's worth it.


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## cliffsecord (Jan 10, 2020)

Just make sure that you can port your umber OUT of Ooma or Magic jack in case you want to. Some VOIP providers I read can port in but not out.

I've been using Freephoneline with a VOIP box for many years now. I haven't paid for a landline in so long, it's been great. It does take a bit of knowledge but once it's set up, no problems. It only has free calling in Canada however. I use an ObiHai/Polycomm and I use a google voice account for US calling.

For those looking for a Canadian VOIP provider try Fongo. I ported one of our 416 Toronto numbers for $25 10 years ago to Fongo even though we don't use it - we can probably sell the number for a profit now!! With Fongo, once you've ported or paid for a number, it is free to use on Android or iOS. It has the same parent company as Freephoneline so only Canada is free and you'll need to pay to call the US. Fongo also has a $3 or so plan for unlimited texting if you want to go full VOIP for your mobile phone. You can also use a free number before porting to try it out.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

cainvest said:


> Yes, where does one sign up to transfer their phone number for $1/mo in Canada?


voip.ms based out of Montreal has free number porting and Canadian numbers

It's about $1 per month based in USD varies a bit. I just top it up once every few years and forget about it. You can use any VoIP app you want on mobile or PC. I get voicemail as a wav audio file to email and I can get sms via any VoIP app that has the capability

I've used it for over a decade to maintain a stable Canadian number while living overseas


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## MyCatMittens (Oct 20, 2015)

m3s said:


> voip.ms based out of Montreal has free number porting and Canadian numbers
> I've used it for over a decade to maintain a stable Canadian number while living overseas


I have also been using voip.ms for a very long time. I have generally found them to be reliable as well. Although for the past few years, it has primarily just been used for my home alarm system (via Cisco ATA). I have it forward my "legacy" home phone number to my cell. Like you, I just top it up every year or so and forget about it.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

MyCatMittens said:


> I have also been using voip.ms for a very long time. I have generally found them to be reliable as well. Although for the past few years, it has primarily just been used for my home alarm system (via Cisco ATA). I have it forward my "legacy" home phone number to my cell. Like you, I just top it up every year or so and forget about it.


Yea same I don't really use it that much

Mostly for companies that require a Cdn number when my sim is a foreign number. I just use it as a "burner" number now for companies so any spam or random calls go to my email as a wav audio voicemail

I should try using it as my 2FA for legacy companies that require sms 2FA. That way if I can to a foreign number I can still get the sms anywhere. A cheap eSim would also work but I doubt there is any esim plan for $1

To use it for a a business would require some technical ability to optimize the settings. Magic Jack is overpriced for the simplicity I suppose.


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## Ponderling (Mar 1, 2013)

The other option is to get a VOIP phone service and buy an ATA to allow old land line phones in a house to still be used. Might be less jarring to older folks to still be able to grab the plain old phone they are used to.


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## gardner (Feb 13, 2014)

Ponderling said:


> get a VOIP phone service and buy an ATA


Are there favourite ATA models out there? I'm considering a Ciso ATA-191 because I believe it is high quality, will be reliable and have reasonable features. OTOH, it is expensive compared to some others and I am not easily able to find a full instruction manual. For my part I want to run an Asterisk server and have the ATA talk to that, primarily, vs direct to an outside viop service, but that's a different consideration.


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## Ponderling (Mar 1, 2013)

I am still exploring this, for when my work career ends and my work cel phone then ends. Oh... to some day maybe soon be free of that leash.

Currently we have an older cel phone which we own outright that sits on the kitchen table that now has our old land line number. It costs us about $30 a month, since we have two other cel phones on same provider account. Grandma and other family relatives call on that line. 

My work colleague has bought an ATA off Amazon and then has a prepaid US based VOIP service that ported the old land line number linked through it. Rings a couple of land line phones in his house.

He did this because in his house both he and his wife have work cel phones with work desk number also redirected to them. So the land line is how grandma and grandpa can call and his tween kids can answer and talk to them if mom and dad are tied up on work calls or zoom conferences


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## Covariance (Oct 20, 2020)

gardner said:


> Are there favourite ATA models out there? I'm considering a Ciso ATA-191 because I believe it is high quality, will be reliable and have reasonable features. OTOH, it is expensive compared to some others and I am not easily able to find a full instruction manual. For my part I want to run an Asterisk server and have the ATA talk to that, primarily, vs direct to an outside viop service, but that's a different consideration.


Grandstream ATA works fine to connect to a provider. Not sure about connecting to your own server.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

There's no telephone line or phone jacks in new Ontario houses by the way

So if you pay Bell or anyone for a "phone" plan you're just overpaying for VoIP

There are 2 phone ports on my Bell router if you want to plug in a legacy phone


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

I have had MJ for over ten years using the plugin jack on my laptop for the first years until they introduced mobile versions. It will be cancelled when the current five year period is up. Still some corporate accounts use it when we are in Mexico but my Mobile now serves that purpose anywhere.


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## Juggernaut92 (Aug 9, 2020)

Big thanks to everyone for all the replies. I think I will most likely go with magic jack for my parents. From all the replies it sounds like a good choice. Ooma was interesting to check out as I was not aware of it but I recall seeing that logo somewhere. voip.ms was pretty cool too but I think my parents may not be that tech savvy for it. Maybe that will be the final frontier. 

I do resonate with the one comment regarding parents wanting to still grab a cordless phone instead of it being directed to a cell phone lol. 

@Ponderling What would be the purpose of an ATA if you have a magic jack? From what I understand the new MJ device has 1 USB port that connects to a wall charger. Then it has two ports on the other side. One for an ethernet cable connecting to internet and another port that has the smaller port that will connect to an old style phone.


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## gardner (Feb 13, 2014)

Juggernaut92 said:


> What would be the purpose of an ATA if you have a magic jack?


A MagicJack is a form of ATA -- it just comes with and I believe is locked into, a VOIP subscription from that company vs being generically able to connect to an arbitrary provider of your choice.


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## gardner (Feb 13, 2014)

For those out there managing their own VIOP, is voip.ms about the best option? My ISP will provide a VOIP service and port my number and sell me an ATA, but the price is pretty high at north of $20 per month. A voip.ms subscription with PAYG clocking it at $5/month with 911, a couple of numbers, a bunch of VIOP features and self managed flexibility is looking pretty good by contrast. Are there other Canadian providers you'd recommend looking at?


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## MyCatMittens (Oct 20, 2015)

gardner said:


> Are there favourite ATA models out there? I'm considering a Ciso ATA-191 because I believe it is high quality, will be reliable and have reasonable features. OTOH, it is expensive compared to some others and I am not easily able to find a full instruction manual. For my part I want to run an Asterisk server and have the ATA talk to that, primarily, vs direct to an outside viop service, but that's a different consideration.


I use the same ATA (Cisco ATA 192) predominately for the same reasons as you. You shouldn't have too many issues connecting it to Asterisk. There seems to be quite a few HOW-TO documents on the Internet. I had mine connected to Cisco Unified Communications Manager ("CallManager") for quite a long time. I gave it up because nobody in my house uses a phone anymore (analog or IP)


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## Plugging Along (Jan 3, 2011)

We replaced our housephone using freephoneline.ca about 10 years ago. We had to pay a one $25 charge to port our house phone over but there are no more fees. We just wanted to keep the number. Before the kids had their own cells, we still had cordless phones where they could call their friends (very rare for kids to do these days). Now, don't even use the phone, and just have it go to voicemail. 

We would have done this for my dad, but it does not have the option to call 911. It does take ALOT of set up. We had some quite a few problems in the early days, and my spouse has a masters in computer science. This is the other reason we don't want to set my dad up with this one, because we its a 30 minute drive if he has any problem. If he was closer, we would do it.

Apparently, the parent company has a service for $5 a month, but my spouse refuses to be pay on principle. He feels getting free phone is part of his ROI for his education.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

gardner said:


> For those out there managing their own VIOP, is voip.ms about the best option? My ISP will provide a VOIP service and port my number and sell me an ATA, but the price is pretty high at north of $20 per month. A voip.ms subscription with PAYG clocking it at $5/month with 911, a couple of numbers, a bunch of VIOP features and self managed flexibility is looking pretty good by contrast. Are there other Canadian providers you'd recommend looking at?


voip.ms has been around a long time

When I started using it was known to be the best but I don't really research it anymore. It's a matter of googling voip in Canada. Scratch that I just tried and all the scams show up that cost 10-20x more

If you find something better let us know.


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## off.by.10 (Mar 16, 2014)

Haven't found anything better than voip.ms either when I set up a home phone a few years ago. They're upfront about the cost and pretty much everything is "pay for what you need". Even 911 service is optional. Complete opposite of Canadian telcos, which is a good thing.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

cainvest said:


> Excellent comment.
> 
> Who do you get your virtual number through?


You can buy a Canadian number (many area codes) through CallCentric. It costs me $2/month to keep a 416 number there.

Here's a direct link. Callcentric calls this a Pay Per Minute Phone Number.

CallCentric supports the SIP standard protocol. To test this out, I installed the Android app: *Grandstream Wave Lite*
Here are the Callcentric instructions on how to configure it

It's a bit technical but the instructions are pretty clearly illustrated. There a few settings you must make, which hooks up Grandstream Wave Lite (on your phone) to CallCentric.

On your smartphone, make sure you don't use the regular dialer... you have to use the VoIP software for all of this --- Grandstream Wave Lite, with WiFi connected.

Now to test it out. Using the dialer program on the phone, I called: 1-800-437-7950

It works! The automated service read back my virtual phone number (the 416 area code one). Next I tried using this call my lost phone service to check incoming calls. That works too! The cost for these test calls was about 2 cents.

Next, I'll call an Australian phone number, which I enter into the dialer as: 011 61 2 9999 3283
Yup! That works too. The cost of the call was 3 cents (for 1 minute).


This is the first time I tried this smartphone software. It seems perfectly good for doing outgoing calls. I'm not entirely sure how well the incoming calls would work.


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## cliffsecord (Jan 10, 2020)

Plugging Along said:


> We replaced our housephone using freephoneline.ca about 10 years ago. We had to pay a one $25 charge to port our house phone over but there are no more fees. We just wanted to keep the number. Before the kids had their own cells, we still had cordless phones where they could call their friends (very rare for kids to do these days). Now, don't even use the phone, and just have it go to voicemail.
> 
> We would have done this for my dad, but it does not have the option to call 911. It does take ALOT of set up. We had some quite a few problems in the early days, and my spouse has a masters in computer science. This is the other reason we don't want to set my dad up with this one, because we its a 30 minute drive if he has any problem. If he was closer, we would do it.
> 
> Apparently, the parent company has a service for $5 a month, but my spouse refuses to be pay on principle. He feels getting free phone is part of his ROI for his education.


Free phone line like most VOIP services have e911 service which routes to a different 911 service and can be more involved and not as quick. From what I've read however they just route you directly to 911. Police, Fire, Emergency 911 Service

If you need true 911 you need a true landline. From what I recall if you have a bell landline with no plan you can still call 911.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

james4beach said:


> You can buy a Canadian number (many area codes) through CallCentric. It costs me $2/month to keep a 416 number there.
> 
> Here's a direct link. Callcentric calls this a Pay Per Minute Phone Number.
> 
> ...


Basically voip.ms but much higher prices and setup fee. I pay $0.85/month for my Canadian voip number (I just throw $20 USD in there every few years)

I use Bria app for my SIP phone number that I bought a decade ago. I mostly use it to receive voice mail from random businesses that require a phone because they haven't updated their systems and processes to use email like modern business (heck some business will communicate by app now like they've done in asia for a decade)

I need to try using it for 2FA sms though. I just switched from US to Cdn number and switching all the 2FA was a huge PITA. I'm still locked out of CRA


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

cliffsecord said:


> If you need true 911 you need a true landline. From what I recall if you have a bell landline with no plan you can still call 911.


Any mobile phone can also call 911 without any plan


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

m3s said:


> Basically voip.ms but much higher prices and setup fee. I pay $0.85/month for my Canadian voip number (I just throw $20 USD in there every few years)


Thanks, good to know this. So you can buy Canadian phone numbers through voip.ms too?

@cliffsecord also regarding 911

Yes any mobile phone, even without a SIM card, can call 911. However there will be no address information tied to the account. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think on a landline, 911 comes with address information.

That could be really valuable if someone calls 911 but then becomes unresponsive or is unable to talk.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

james4beach said:


> Thanks, good to know this. So you can buy Canadian phone numbers through voip.ms too?


Yes I held a Cdn number from them for a decade now. For example when I had a US or EU number I needed a Cdn number for some businesses forms. Works well as a burner number too



james4beach said:


> That could be really valuable if someone calls 911 but then becomes unresponsive or is unable to talk.


iPhone and Apple watch will call 911 automatically if you have an accident and don't respond. I assume it's using GPS data

Someone posted on a motorbike forum a bunch of emergency vehicles found him off-roading and apparently triggered it. They were happy the location worked so well

Really if 911 required an address it's a poor antiquated system. Most young people don't have landlines and mobile are mobile


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## Covariance (Oct 20, 2020)

m3s said:


> Yes I held a Cdn number from them for a decade now. For example when I had a US or EU number I needed a Cdn number for some businesses forms. Works well as a burner number too
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I also have multiple numbers with them.


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## cliffsecord (Jan 10, 2020)

m3s said:


> Yes I held a Cdn number from them for a decade now. For example when I had a US or EU number I needed a Cdn number for some businesses forms. Works well as a burner number too
> 
> 
> 
> ...


OT.

"The iPhone 14's new Crash Detection feature, which is intended to automatically alert emergency personnel when it calculates that it's been in a car accident, is reportedly experiencing its own accident on roller coasters by unintentionally dialing 911. "









iPhone 14 Reportedly Dialing 911 During Roller Coaster Rides


The handset's Crash Detection feature is apparently misinterpreting the wild movements as car accidents.




www.cnet.com


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

cliffsecord said:


> OT.
> 
> "The iPhone 14's new Crash Detection feature, which is intended to automatically alert emergency personnel when it calculates that it's been in a car accident, is reportedly experiencing its own accident on roller coasters by unintentionally dialing 911. "


Yea I saw that too

I'm sure they can work out the bugs. Thing is it's silly to say phone numbers need an address when 911 can obviously use mobile data now to geolocate

iPhone 14 can also communicate with the Canadian military rescue center via satellite soon


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