# Magic Jack



## Dana (Nov 17, 2009)

I hear that Magic Jack is now available in Canada at Best Buy for 49.99. Apparently for $19.95 per year (not month) you get unlimited calling in Canada and the US. Has anyone here used Magic Jack? If so, what are your thoughts about it? I have heard one review so far and it was a rave.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

Majic Jack is full of spyware and crap. Research it. It will hog all your computer ram and bombard you with ads and malware etc


You're much better off paying voip.ms the $1 USD per month for a Cdn area code and 1/2 cent per min. I think it's $5 unlimited but I never come close to that

You can use whatever softphone you want, or whatever device you want to plug in a "plain old phone" This way you can have a "plain old phone" that doesn't require a computer running

The setup involves copying a server address and logging in to your account. If you want, the options are endless (premium quality, voicemail, automated answering, toll free numbers, virtual numbers, filtering and blocking numbers etc etc etc)


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

I have used MJ since June 2008 with no problems. It performs better than other VOIP services. There has been no problems with spam, virus, etc. I have a San Diego number as we use it extensively while in Mexico.

I would not use it as my only number. But for free LD calling it is great. I just signed up for 5 more years for $60 ($1/mo).


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

If by other voip you mean Vonage and Skype then yes

The Majic Jack owner has a history of fraudulent business. BBB gives Majic Jack a F rating. The terms you accept with Majic Jack allow them to use spyware etc. My main beef with that is its a waste of computer resources like RAM. But I guess you're all probably using Norton anti virus and Adobe reader as well


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## Maltese (Apr 22, 2009)

Both my parents and my sister call me long-distance with their Magic Jacks. 

We frequently experience dropped calls. There are times too, when they are calling, that I pick up my phone and there is no one on the other end. This can go on repeatedly until they finally get through properly.

Reception can be crummy too.

While the free LD calls are nice for them, I find it annoying when Magic Jack doesn't work properly.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

It's really sad that all these well-known voip providers give voip such a bad name

The only reason you know of them is because they spend $$ on marketing. How can they afford to be so cheap? Ads and cheaping out on quality

Yes any voip is dirt cheap compared to landline, and it should be since you already pay for internet. Why pay for marketing and subject yourself to ads


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

Maltese said:


> Both my parents and my sister call me long-distance with their Magic Jacks.
> 
> We frequently experience dropped calls. There are times too, when they are calling, that I pick up my phone and there is no one on the other end. This can go on repeatedly until they finally get through properly.
> 
> ...


Skype is pretty junk, too, along the same lines.
I have heard that Vonage is better voice quality & reliability among the VOIP services.

I know of the savings with VOIP, but those "savings" come at the price of quality and reliability.
To me, that's not frugality, that's compromise.

When friends/family call us using cheap VOIP services, it's rather annoying having to put up with the static, dropped calls, morse-code style conversation, etc.
Ya know, if you can't spend 5c./min. calling me from a decent phone, let's just stick with email.


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## Berubeland (Sep 6, 2009)

You know my problems with my VOIP phone started when Rogers began traffic shaping. Since then my fax machine which used to work perfectly hardly ever works. 

Some days I feel like suing their *** for not providing me what I pay for. Now they are increasing rates again, I guess they have to pay for Teddy's funeral may he rest in h#ll. 

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...es-netflix-with-lower-broadband-data-caps.ars


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

HaroldCrump said:


> When friends/family call us using cheap VOIP services, it's rather annoying having to put up with the static, dropped calls, morse-code style conversation, etc.


People often don't know how to set things up right and blame the voip service. I find Skype ok with my setup but voip.ms is far better

All it takes is 1 bad device. You need a new router that supports QoS, MIMO etc. You also need a good mic that has noise cancellation (iPhone, or good bluetooth device etc) You need to have the proper settings for the VoIP and the router. In the technology's infancy, if you use a company that won't allow settings (Majic Jack, Vonage) or don't understand the settings the quality will suffer

A cheap mic, cheap router, or poor internet etc will make any VoIP service sound horrible and people say "Skype is horrible" etc

The quality on my home WiFi is amazing. I also have a small internet provider that hasn't degraded service like the big ones. On certain hotel WiFi etc I can see a drop in quality. The quality on 3G is still poor and delayed, since data is limited


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## gregdo (May 18, 2010)

I use Skype all the time to talk to (and see) my family in Australia and it's brilliant. I have a 5 year old notebook computer and it works just fine. I spoke with my brother for over an hour a couple on days ago and the sound was perfect. The video sometime gets out of sync, but that's no big deal. It's also free, which is hard to beat. I haven't bothered to check out any of the other VOIP services. I use telehop with my regular phone (POTS) as my long distance provider which costs about 2.5 c/minute to US, Canada, Australia, etc.

I seriously considered Magic Jack a couple of years ago because a few of my friends in the US had bought them, but they have all since give up on it.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

HaroldCrump said:


> Skype is pretty junk, too, along the same lines.
> I have heard that Vonage is better voice quality & reliability among the VOIP services.


I use Vonage for my work phone line, and it certainly works well enough for that. I only occasionally get poor voice quality or interference, mainly when I happen to be sending a large file by email at the same time.

I used Skype on my iPod Touch last week to talk with a friend in Seattle for an hour, and was amazed at how clear the call was -- better than any cellphone call; it sounded like he was in the room with me. But he did mention that Skype sometimes gets flaky at peak times when many millions of people are using the system all at once.


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

HaroldCrump said:


> Skype is pretty junk, too, along the same lines.
> I have heard that Vonage is better voice quality & reliability among the VOIP services.
> 
> I know of the savings with VOIP, but those "savings" come at the price of quality and reliability.
> ...


I completely agree. Unfortunately there are too many people out there who waste their time and my patience with crappy quality calls, just because it's new, trendy, techie, etc.

My regular phone NEVER has a dropped call, NEVER has static, no spyware, never needs charging and does not depend on any other equipment besides the phone jack. Buy phone, plug in, done. For people to give up on that solid technology just to follow some modern techie trend is ridiculous.

I have a friend who calls me on one of these things and it's absolutely horrible voice reception. It sounds like he is talking on a cordless phone that's about 300 feet from it's base. There's NO sync in voice and he can't hear when I begin to talk and constantly interrupts me and I have to constantly repeat. I've more or less given up trying to converse and just have to sit there like a lump on a log because I just get too frustrated trying to have a normal conversation.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Not all voip is bad. And it saves me about 90% on my phone costs. If I have any issues with the phone or my internet connection, I still have my cell phone.


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

Berubeland said:


> You know my problems with my VOIP phone started when Rogers began traffic shaping.
> Some days I feel like suing their *** for not providing me what I pay for. Now they are increasing rates again,


It's all about being creative with pricing in the absence of product innovation.
Essentially, core DSL technology hasn't changed in the last several years.
Back then, there was dial-up service @ 58 kbps or 128 kbps and then there was the pricey DSL service.
Over the year, competition and demand drew down the price of DSL.
Fibre optic lines were added and that gave the telecom companies the opportunity to do this type of creative tier-based pricing.
These days, they offer the same service in tiers, based on speed, bandwidth, volume of data, etc.
They slice and dice these three parameters to create their "packages" and price them separately.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

I think the problem is with the packet sniffing designed to clamp down on any filesharing activity, but unfortunately due to the arms race between the pirates and the ISPs, they've made many legitimate uses such as VPN, VOIP, etc. unusable or near-to.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

brad said:


> I used Skype on my iPod Touch last week to talk with a friend in Seattle for an hour, and was amazed at how clear the call was -- better than any cellphone call; it sounded like he was in the room with me. But he did mention that Skype sometimes gets flaky at peak times when many millions of people are using the system all at once.


Same experience on my iPhone - amazing quality over my home WiFi. I think it's because the iPhone has a better mic/speaker etc

I haven't paid for landline in years and if you want to pay for it go ahead. I've said it before NORAD uses VoIP so obviously it can be reliable when you take out all the marketing, cost cutting, and resistance from the rich landline giants


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

Another vote for avoiding downloads on the internet connection using VOIP. This also applies to Vonage. This includes any seeding activity by uTorrent.

BTW MJ has a dedicated network in the US so calls from Vancouver to Toronto work better than calls from Calgary to Edmonton because they hop on the network in Bellingham and hop off in Buffalo.

When we use it in Mexico, it relies on regular internet VOIP to get to the US.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

kcowan said:


> Another vote for avoiding downloads on the internet connection using VOIP. This also applies to Vonage. This includes any seeding activity by uTorrent..


You need a QoS router. I d/l and use voip. Seeding however will kill you as almost all internet providers give you very little upload capability. It really should be equal up and down bandwidth with all the new uses of internet


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

My d/l is over 10 times faster than my upload.. and when talking on voip is a 2 way communication.


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