Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Cheap Phone Service with magicJack

Living in another country can mean having expensive phone calls if I want to call home. Martijn was concerned about this and set us up with a VOIP (internet telephone) service that usually works okay. It has some quirks though and if my mom wanted to call me, she still had to make an international call.

Enter the magicJack.

magicjack

The magicJack is a USB device that has a regular old phone jack on it. This way you can plug a regular telephone into your computer and make free domestic phone calls (and very cheap international ones!). It's quite small -- about the size of a Zippo lighter and a little bit thicker.

My dad started carrying these in his store, and brought one home for my mom to activate and test. She got it going with no problem and started telling me how wonderful it was. The international rates to The Netherlands (and much of the rest of Europe) are 2 cents per minute which is quite a lot less than the phone card rates she was getting previously. I was really only half listening to her about how wonderful it was because we already had the other VOIP service and I wasn't really sure this would be any better.

We ended up meeting the guy that invented the device when we were in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show. It somehow came out that I didn't actually have a magicJack for myself and they gave me one to try out.

I gotta say, I am impressed.

Here's how to get started:
  • You purchase your magicJack through the website (or a retail store such as RadioShack) for around $40.
  • Try not to swear as you cut open the impossible to open package (seriously guys, why must the packing on this kind of thing be SO ANNOYING).
  • Plug the magicJack into an open USB port on your computer and let the software install.
  • Follow the prompts on the software to set up your account and choose your phone number.
  • Verify the e-mail address that you signed up with.
  • Plug any old telephone into your magicJack and make your first call!
I had absolutely no problems getting mine up and running (neither did my mom, and she's not as computer savvy as me). In about 5 minutes I was able to register and select that I wanted a Utah telephone number. You must be running Windows XP, Vista, or an Intel based Mac in order for the magicJack to work. You also need to have a high-speed (broadband) internet connection.

As with anything, you'll have both your pros and cons. Here are the main points I noticed.


Pros
  • Quick and easy to set up
  • Really inexpensive- the purchase of the device for $40 includes a years worth of service ($19.95 to continue after the first year)
  • Local phone number for my parents to call me on
  • You can take your magicJack with you wherever you go. I have a Utah telephone number but will be using mine in The Netherlands. It's not tied to any one computer so you can take it to a friends house and use it there if you need to as well.
  • Call quality is pretty good. I did hear a little bit of an echo at the beginning of a couple of my phone calls, but I get that with my other service too so it's more of a VOIP problem than a magicJack problem.

Cons
  • You must have the computer on to use this device. One of the things I liked about our other VOIP service is that we've got a little box that connects to the router which allows us to call even when the computers are off.
  • If you have a slow or dodgy internet connection, your call quality can suffer.
  • Doesn't work with Linux
  • Chat-based web only support









I don't know that I would advise dumping your landline in favor of the magicJack, but I do think that it's wonderful for long distance and the fact that I can have a local to my parents Utah telephone number!

Cheap phone calls Work for Me! I'd love to hear what others do for long distance, especially for international calls.

click the graphic to see more Works for Me Wednesday posts

37 comments:

Jennifer said...

I bought this a couple of months ago and I absolutely love it! It works and it is cheap. What could be better than that? It is our only home phone, but since I am not paying monthly anymore for phone service we are going to upgrade our cell phone service.

Unknown said...

Cool! I will have to look into this. ;-) Thanks for sharing!

Anonymous said...

That is really nice. I could have used that a few years ago when my inlaws lived in Africa. I think the VOIP was just getting big around the time they left so we used calling cards which were costly.

Kristen said...

I have seen those advertised and wondered how well they work. We use Skype, so it's similar, but I like options!

Tiffany said...

Hi there! Thanks for writing a review on the Magicjack. Right now we must have a lan line, but one day, the magic jack may be our best option.

Thanks for coming by my blog!

na said...

I heard about these. Thanks for sharing more information about them.

Sonya said...

Thats really neat. We just make regular phone calls..we dont really use a special service. I think we pay 20 cents a minute. I actually dont have alot of family to call back home that often so it doesnt carve into our phone bill that much. I love this idea though!

Unknown said...

I wanted to get one of these but my husband said he found something better. I may never know what it is because it will take a year for him to hook it up for me. I don't even know where he put it. LOL I should have just bought the Magic Jack, it'd be up and running by now.

John and Lisa said...

I am glad that you have had a good experience with Magic Jack, and I thought that I would enjoy it too, but after a trial period I chose to cancel. The price is definitely right, and I had no problem with the quality. It is possible that Magic Jack had nothing to do with my bad experience, but I was wary because of the timing of my trial with Magic Jack and the discovery of a malicious virus on my computer. Hopefully for your sake they had nothing to do with each other.
(Sorry to be such a wet blanket.)

Krisi and Adam said...

What a great review. We use our cell phones for long distance calls and I don't think I have ever made an international call. We just purchased a cell phone for the house (our new house phone) it was $9.99 to add a line to our current plan. I did consider the magicJack but really had no idea what it was or how it worked. Thanks for the info.

Tijn said...

Sonya: At 20 cents per minute, you might want to consider www.voipbuster.com . They offer phone-to-phone calls from their website as well (you fill in the telephone number you're currently at, the telephone number you want to call, and it'll first call you before dialing your remote party). They charge 5 cents per call for this service, but the good part is that the rest of your call will be rather cheap, possibly free. Every time you up your account (minimum payment 11.something euro for 10 euro credit) you get 90 "free days", during which calls to certain countries (including .nl and .us) have no costs per minute. After that, their rates are compareable with skype and friends.

So if you're calling your relatives for more than 50 minutes every 3 months, it might be worth looking into.

Kristin - The Goat said...

My husband ordered this a few weeks ago - it is still sitting on the counter, not even out of the box! I have been wondering what in the world it was, but hadn't looked it up -- Thanks so much for this review. I'll install it tomorrow!

Thanks for stopping by my place!

Lomagirl said...

Good to know. Thanks. My husband uses computer chat all the time to talk internationally, and we've used a service to call my parents overseas using a local number. I can't remember what it's called right now. Why are you in the Netherlands?
Thanks for your visit...

Wizardress said...

Very cool. I think Vivian uses that too and a friend of my moms uses it. Everyone seems to love them. I maybe should give it a try too.

Sharinskishe said...

Wow, it is amazing where technology has gone! I was born in 1960 and just in my own lifetime I have seen some pretty amazing things.

This is a great advance for those who want to stay in touch via voice and keep the price down. I am so happy for you and your great find.

This makes me want to write a page on my experiences with phones when I lived in Norway during 1984 and 1985. Maybe I will soon. I'll send you a link when I do.

Thanks for sharing.

Sharinskishe

JeanieE said...

I used this while I lived in Russia. It was wonderful!

Anonymous said...

You really make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this topic to be really something that I think I would never understand.
It seems too complex and extremely broad for me. I'm looking forward for your next post, I'll try to get the
hang of it!
My site - beitragsbemessungsgrenze private kv

Anonymous said...

Hello There. I found your blog the usage of msn.

That is an extremely well written article. I'll make sure to bookmark it and come back to learn extra of your useful info. Thank you for the post. I'll certainly return.


My site; krankenversicherung
Here is my web blog -

Anonymous said...

Wow that was unusual. I just wrote an incredibly long comment but after I clicked submit my
comment didn't show up. Grrrr... well I'm not writing all that over again.
Regardless, just wanted to say excellent blog!


my blog post; wechsel von privat in gesetzliche krankenkasse
Feel free to surf my webpage ;

Anonymous said...

We are a bunch of volunteers and opening a brand new scheme in our community.
Your site offered us with helpful information
to work on. You've done a formidable job and our entire group might be thankful to you.
my web site: search optimization services

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing your thoughts about private kv vergleich.
Regards

Feel free to surf to my web blog ... gesetzliche krankenkasse
My site -

Anonymous said...

Howdy I am so grateful I found your blog page, I really found you by error, while I was searching on
Yahoo for something else, Regardless I am here now
and would just like to say thank you for a incredible post and a all round thrilling blog (I also
love the theme/design), I don’t have time to look over
it all at the minute but I have book-marked it and also included your RSS
feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read a great deal more, Please do keep up the great jo.
My web blog :: klein Kredit ohne Schufa

Anonymous said...

Hello to every one, it's genuinely a fastidious for me to go to see this website, it consists of important Information.
Feel free to surf my webpage ; simply click the next site

Anonymous said...

This web site definitely has all the info I wanted
about this subject and didn't know who to ask.
Also see my web page > business to business ideas

Anonymous said...

Undeniably imagine that which you stated.
Your favorite justification seemed to be on the internet the
simplest thing to take into account of. I say to you, I certainly get
irked whilst people consider worries that they plainly do not recognize about.
You managed to hit the nail upon the top as smartly as defined out the
entire thing without having side effect , other people
can take a signal. Will probably be again to get
more. Thanks
Stop by my site ... bad credit loans for homes

Anonymous said...

With havin so much content do you ever run into any issues of plagorism or copyright infringement?
My website has a lot of completely unique content I've either authored myself or outsourced but it looks like a lot of it is popping it up all over the internet without my permission. Do you know any ways to help reduce content from being stolen? I'd really appreciate it.


Also visit my website ... http://www.date-online-today.com/profile.php?ID=34408
My blog post :: mouse click the following web site

Anonymous said...

naturally like your web-site but you need to take a look at the spelling on quite a few of your posts.

A number of them are rife with spelling issues and I to find
it very bothersome to inform the truth then again I will
definitely come again again.
My homepage : best website hosting And design

Anonymous said...

My spouse and I stumbled over here from a different website and thought I may
as well check things out. I like what I see so now i'm following you. Look forward to exploring your web page again.

my webpage; http://www.excelsiordeoiuvante.nl/index.php?option=com_blog&view=comments&pid=10491&Itemid=0
Also see my site > find Affiliate products

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on pushing daisies.
Regards

Here is my website: Vi-O.cOM - Blog View - Points To Ponder More Than On Health Insurance

Anonymous said...

Hey would you mind letting me know which hosting company you're utilizing? I've loaded your blog in 3 completely different browsers and I must say this blog loads a lot quicker then most.
Can you suggest a good internet hosting provider at a fair price?
Many thanks, I appreciate it!

my web blog; visit the up coming document

Anonymous said...

whoah this blog is fantastic i love studying
your articles. Keep up the great work! You already know, many
persons are searching around for this information, you could aid
them greatly.

My blog post ... big island vacation package

Anonymous said...

Right away I am going away to do my breakfast, after having my breakfast coming yet again to
read more news.

Also visit my website: Email Console

Anonymous said...

If you wish for to get a great deal from this piece of writing then you
have to apply such techniques to your won web site.


Feel free to surf to my web-site :: Email Console

Anonymous said...

My spouse and I stumbled over here coming from a different web page and thought I should check things out.
I like what I see so now i am following you.
Look forward to finding out about your web page repeatedly.


Feel free to visit my web blog - clear

Anonymous said...

I like the helpful information you provide in your articles.
I will bookmark your weblog and check again here regularly.
I'm quite sure I'll learn lots of new stuff right here!

Best of luck for the next!

Here is my blog post; government Loans for homes

Anonymous said...

I used to be recommended this web site via my cousin. I'm not positive whether this submit is written by him as nobody else realize such distinctive approximately my difficulty. You are amazing! Thanks!

Feel free to visit my blog post - Modellus: Personal profile: Janelle Carver

Anonymous said...

I typically don't answer my messages but in this case. WoW! '

Here is my page; business ideas to start from home

Post a Comment

Related Posts with Thumbnails