I was recently made aware of a fabulous new product called Magic Jack. Magic Jack is a VOIP option similar to Vontage. It has the same requirements as Vontage (meaning always on High Speed Internet) with one addition. You must leave a computer on all the time too.Here is how it works. You connect a USB device (a Magic Jack) to your computer. This will install the software needed to run the Jack. You then are taken through a very quick registration process were you are given a phone number. (You get to pick the area code and prefix.)
After that you plug any normal phone into the the Jack and you are off and running. You can make and receive calls on the number that you get from the registration process.
Why is this so amazing? Because all of this very cheap! The Jack cost me $20 and the service costs $20 a year. Yes that is right, $20 a year, as in 365 days. (I also paid a bit more than $15 in premium shipping because I could not wait to try it out.) I pay about $35 a month for my current phone bill so I got excited about a $20 a year service.
So, now that I have it, what is my impression of the Magic Jack? Well, this lets me introduce another feature of the product, a 30 day return policy. That is right, I am planning to send my Magic Jack back. But don't let this dissuade you from trying it out. I did not have a computer equal to the task of running the Jack. (I plan to re-purchase after I am able to afford a new computer.) The only computers that I could use for this are a 6 year old desktop and a 4 year old laptop that both barely run. If you have a computer that stays at home that is newer than this I recommend you give it a try. Remember that if it is a laptop it will need to stay where you can use it as your phone system (i.e. if you are replacing your home phone and you take it to work that may be a problem).
The Magic Jack did make and receive calls just fine for a good while, but when my computer went idle the jack would turn off. I don't know if this was the fault of some power saving setting on my laptop or the fault of the Magic Jack. The Magic Jack website did have a patch that supposedly would fix this issue, but it did not work for me. In the end, this is the reason I am returning the Magic Jack.
The quality of the call varied depending on where the jack was. I was able to get Land Line level quality for some calls, but most calls were around cell phone level quality (there was a very faint background sound).
The Magic Jack system is very robust. It has free phone calls to the USA and Canada. It has Voice Mail and will even email you when you get a message. It also has Caller ID, but this was not as good as the Caller ID from my phone company because it only listed the phone number, not the name of the caller.
My bottom line on the Magic Jack is, if you have a cell phone already in the home, a semi-decent computer that can come out of the Idle State quickly and a desire to drop your Land Line phone bill then give the Magic Jack try.
http://www.magicjack.com
