I'd previously posted (May 2008)my initial impressions of the MagicJack - a USB device which I decided to try as an alternative phone service, having previously had a regular line through the phone company as well as phone service through our cable company.
For an initial investment of $39.95, you get the USB jack and a year of phone service which includes free long distance to the US and Canada (as well as free international long distance between MagicJack users), Caller ID, 3-way Calling, Call Waiting and Voicemail as well as being registered to the 911 service. Phone service after the year is up costs $19.95 per year. That's right, not per month, per YEAR!
Am I still pleased? You bet! After finally settling on where all our computers would go when we moved into a rental after selling our house, I set the MagicJack up in the master bedroom, on my laptop which connects wirelessly to the internet. I am using a vtech DECT6.0 cordless phone with a satellite phone in the kitchen/living area. Sometimes for fun, we plug in Dan's old red analog hotline and use that! (I am always amazed that the MagicJack can power the bell ringer in that relic!)
Occasionally I experience a lag in the conversation, as well as the person I am talking to sounding choppy. These issues seem to occur when my husband is downloading big files from the internet. Dan suspects the wireless internet setup may impact the performance of the MagicJack somewhat, but again, the lag and choppiness are not constant.
I continue to have fairly frequent call quality issues with my friend in CO, most noticeably on her cell, but also on her landline as well. But there are also times when I have absolutely no problems while talking to her.
After 3 months of exclusive use for a landline, I still believe the MagicJack rocks! Because there are some issues with call quality, I recommend a backup phone (such as a cell), just in case. I have no intention of going back to the phone or cable company for phone service and in fact just ordered 4 more MagicJacks - two for us and the other two to be given as gifts. This might very well BE the greatest invention since canned beer!
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Lets get a little real here. What can you expect for $20 a year? Well I have a router on my network and the calls all had a lag of one second. So i replaced my old router with a newer one with QOS and it helped but not that much. I then bought a device called a Hawking Broadband Booster HBB1 and enabled it and the routers (Linksys) QOS and thew lag is gone. the Hawking device is a lag illiminator. Now the magic jack is like a real phone service. Before this. it kinda sucked. Oh and I had to disable the windows QOS in the network settings. So in conclusion my system is 6 years old, with a router linksys BFSR41 ver.4.3 and a Hawking Broadband Booster HBB1 connected to a Magic Jack and it work great now. The Hawkings Broadband Booster HBB1 made all the difference.
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