Product Description

Add magicJack Telephone Adapter to your PC and you can make telephone calls within the USA and Canada for FREE! Skype uses a peer-to-peer network, whereas magicJack uses a dedicated telephone network

Other VoIP carriers do not have dedicated telephone networks, and lease this service from other companies. That means higher costs and poorer reliability. magicJack uses its own dedicated telephone network. You can use magicJack with either a regular telephone handset, or with a headset. You can also use both, and switch between the two. You can move magicJack between Internet providers. You can use magicJack from anywhere in the world (where broadband web access is available). It requires - PC - Windows XP or Vista operating system; (Mac/Apple expected soon); Broadband, high-speed internet, cable internet, DSL - WiFi - WiMax
magicJack comes with an easy-to-use device to allow you to use a regular telephone handset. Service is free for 1st year. $20 per year thereafter.

Product Details

• Brand: magicJack
• Model: Magicjack
• Dimensions: 1.50" h x .50" w x 3.00" l, .6 pounds

Features

• Local/long distance/international calling
• magicJack is free for first year
• Each magicJack includes a free phone number to receive call from anyone in the world
• Free outbound local and long distance calls

Customer Reviews

Not happy with magicjack
I have returned my MagicJack because every other time I tried to use it I had to reboot the software. It became a royal pain. I also had a very difficult time communicating with the return service personnel. They still have not refunded my money a month after they received my magicjack back, and I had to have the credit card company investigate. Please be aware that there is no phone number to call for help, only online help which was not satisfactory.

Works perfect
I was skeptical but it worked great right out the box. I had a little static at first but it has disappeared since they upgraded their servers. I disabled all firewalls before plugging in the first time. After installation you can enable firewalls and open the port that MagicJack uses. Call quality is way better than cellphones and almost as good as a landline.

A lot of bang for your buck
I've been using the MagicJack for over 2 months now and can say it was well worth the $40 I spent (on a whim) just to get my hands on this gadget.

My MJ worked fine right out of the box. Setup was a no-brainer for me, it went right to work on it's own. My first use of the MJ was on a desktop with a hardwired cable modem connection. I plugged in my old Western Electric Princess (analog) phone and rang up my husband's cell. Aside from a very slight lag, sound quality - both ways - was excellent.

My next test was to call my aunt in Colorado. Aside from her comment that I wasn't coming through very loud, this phone call was excellent.

I followed that test up with yet another call to my friend (also in CO) on her cell phone. BAD BAD BAD ... she was coming through choppy and broken up, until a few moments later when the call was completely dropped. A second call ended the same way. I called her back from my regular landline (part of my cable company package for phone, internet and tv service) and the call was fine. I was disappointed and she chided me for buying something that didn't work.

Within a couple of weeks, we had closed on our condo and were getting ready to move into a rental. Once in our rental, we weren't without internet access long - we borrowed bandwidth from our neighbor for my laptop, which I'd decided to try the MJ on. Initial call tests were spotty. My husband says the MJ didn't like the DSL my neighbor had. He flashed the DSL modem's firmware and from then on out, the MJ performed exceptionally well. It was almost unbelievable that it could function that well on a wireless network that wasn't even in our apartment! A few days later, our cable modem was back in service and we began using our own wireless.

I won't say the MJ has performed flawlessly - there have been some momentary issues where call quality is degraded by either a slight lag or somewhat broken up. In all fairness, I've experienced the same issues with my cell phone, with about the same frequency. And I pay far more for my cell phone than I did for the MJ. I take these issues in stride - the savings associated with no longer being held captive by a traditional landline far outweigh the minor and temporary inconveniences I experience. I still have issues with my friend's (in CO) cell phone, but she recently decided it was her cell phone causing problems, not the MJ.

I did notice that the 911 service never verified my home address at the condo we owned - the address remained in "pending" status. Once we moved and I changed the address to the new apartment (which incidently is in the same complex), the green light illuminated on the softphone indicating that 911 would be able to track a call to this address.

The worst thing to happen occurred a few days ago when I received an email with a voicemail message attached. I'd not heard the phone ring, nor did I see the call on my call list. After realizing that I'd missed a few calls, I rebooted my laptop and that cleared the problem.

Recently, my husband wondered aloud if the MJ plugged into a regular household jack would make all the jacks in the house live. He brought home an adapter which enabled us to plug the adapter into the house phone jack, run a line from the MJ to the adapter as well as plug in our cordless phone to the adapter. We had been using a VTech wireless with a second remote VTech (both with the ringers enabled) and these continued to work as though the base phone was plugged directly into the MJ. The only problem is the Caller ID was wiped out. The phones only displayed "CALL" during an incoming call. The softphone would, however, display the Caller ID.

My husband remedied this problem by disconnecting the phone company's line into our home. Now the Caller ID displays normally. He even plugged in an old analog phone with a loud bell ringer, and that rings also!

I feel the MagicJack is well worth the initial $40 investment and MORE than worth $20/year. I plan to buy at least 2 more MJs so my husband and son can have their own phone lines as well.

After using the MJ on a desktop, laptop, hard wired and wireless set up, I am satisfied with MJ's performance. Being able to use the MJ over regular household phone jacks make this product even more enticing.

I know there are those who have had nothing but bad luck with their MJs and find MJs tech support lacking in quality. The online support (FAQ) is difficult to utilize and very sparse in regard to troubleshooting. I don't know how the live tech support is, but from what I've read, it could stand some polishing up as well. Here's hoping MagicJack gets on with improving the FAQ and live Tech Support so those experiencing problems with MJ will not be feeling they wasted their money because they can't remedy their problems. I'd like to see everyone who purchases a MagicJack love it as much as I love mine! When this device works as it's supposed to, it is sweet!