"Magic Jack" ?????

[m25operator]

I have 3 friend who use it and are very satisfied.

[kmitch200]

One family member has it and it works OK most of the time. Sometimes the call breaks up badly.

[Ichiban]

I don't have it, or Vonage, and won't.  Voice Over IP (VOIP) is used a lot and is pretty reliable UNTIL there is a power outage.  Then its dead.  We use it at work for a loot of stuff but we have back-up power and back-ups for the back-up.  At home unless you have a battery back-up on the modem/router and can get a generator to recharge it in a long term power outage the phone won't work.  Regular phones may cost more but it's built to withstand more damage before going out.

I had a friend that used that same argument.  Only problem was he had a wireless phone. DUH!  I have Vonage (got it when it was new and I was making a lot of long distant calls) and haven't had any problems - like getting an email with a vmail left at my home number. If I have a power outage I hope it's localized and rely on my cell.

[Pathfinder]

I have yet to see any VOIP - except internal within a single company on a private intranet - work well most of the type. We had a guy in England on my last project who used Skype, and he was always breaking up, maybe 1 call in 10 worked as desired. Maybe.

There is another alternative with only up-front costs, no monthly costs. Assuming you already have a cellphone, there are devices that will attach to your incoming wired phone lines and allow you to send and receive calls using your house phones so long as you cellphone is plugged into the base station. The cellphone is doing all of the heavy lifting, the local phones on the dresser, desk, kitchen, etc. are just convenience appliances. The real benefit is that you always have an answering machine working (cellphone's voice mail), your computer does not have to be on all of the time (even tho mine usually is), in fact your computer plays no role in the phone system at all.

For seriously die-hard VOIP fanatics, you can always install Asterisk on your computer and have your very own PBX! 

[david86440]

 I know some of you just abhor/hate/detest Google but I use Google voice and it works well, and it's free.

 I wouldn't want to depend on it for all my calling but I like the features. I created a phone number that is local to my 92 yr old mother in Maine so she doesn't have to fool around with a calling card and just calls a local number to get me in CA or where ever I am as it goes to my office phone, my cell phone and my home phone.

 When I make calls from my laptop using Google Voice people always remark how clear the call is and it's like I am next to them.

I also use it at work to mask calls. When I make a call on my office phone it actually looks like someone in Portland, ME called me. Also translates voice messages to text plus a sh*t load of other features.

http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html

[Sponsor]

[Solus]

For VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) to work well, all the routers involved in the connection must support COS (Class of Service).

Standard routers will degrade the throughput of "long" connections.  This is older thinking that long connections, and we are talking long in computer time...so it might be measured in seconds, indicate a large data transfer and quick response is not an issue.  Short transactions would be considered interactive type of traffic and would receive a greater portion of the available bandwidth.

With COS routers, voice connections are recognized and not degraded and thus receive the maximum available bandwidth for the duration of the connection.  Other issues involve route switching and packet sequence which are also mitigated with COS routers.

COS capable routers are replacing all older standard type routers, by attrition in many cases, so your VOIP connection quality will vary depending on the hardware involved in the connection.

Worked for a company and we did VOIP over an MPLS (Multiprotocal  Label Switching) WAN (Wide Area Network) network that had solid VOIP support as one of it's design parameters.  We had branches in Europe and they worked well on our VOIP system.

However, even with all the right gear, there could be an occasional dropout or delay.  We used standard phone connections for any customer calls, inbound or outbound....the thinking being we wanted 100% quality where the customer was involved rather than the 98% provided by our VOIP system.

BTW, for all of you who are grimacing at all the Acronyms in all this, the one I like the best is   PCM-CIA.  It is the name of the little card slot in the side of most laptops.  I never could remember what the letters meant and had enough trouble remembering the letters themselves untill I found this mnemonic   People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms.  

[Ping]

Skype is cool. Just seriously delayed.

[Big Frank]

You can try magic jack free for 30 days to see if you like it or not. You have nothing to lose.

[tt11758]

We have a MajicJack and love it.  And yes, the computer does have to be powered on to use it.

I bought our's about a year ago after some asshat dug a hole without calling Iowa OneCall, cutting a fiber optic cable and taking down 19 cell sites.  As a result, we had no cell service (our only telephone service) for 4-1/2 hours.  Taking into account my medical situation, I didn't feel we could afford to be without the ability to call for help for that long a period of time, and $1.70 a month seemed like pretty cheap insurance to me.

I've talked with m58 over that connection on numerous ocassions, and he has never mentioned any problems of any type.

Just my personal experience.

[PegLeg45]

I've talked with m58 over that connection on numerous ocassions, and he has never mentioned any problems of any type.

Just my personal experience.

I bet sometimes you were praying for some static, though!!!!!!   






   Jab, jab, jab.....finally got to poke Mike for a little payback......