[Visionary2]

http://www.magicjack.com/4/index.asp

They say you can plug this in your computer then plug your phone in it and get free phone service. The downside would be only having one phone and no phone if a power outage or if your computer is down. Of course then I suppose one could use their cell phone. After initial purchase it would save us about $50 a month in phone bills.

It almost sounds too good to be true....what you guys think?

[JohnWill]

Well, it's cheap to try it, and if you don't like it, you're not out a lot of money. Note that you have to have a computer that's on anytime you're using the phone, so keep that in mind.

[Elvandil]

Magic Jack is one of the fasting growing of the telecom companies, with millions of sales in the last few months. They must be doing something right. Do a web search. It seems most people like it.

But as a consumer advocate (and JohnWill) have pointed out, the risk is minimal so you don't lose much even if it doesn't work at all.

[JohnWill]

They also have a 30 day free trial, how much risk is there? I have ViaTalk, it was $10/mo for 24 months for two lines, so I'm set for the next 18 months or so.

[Miss Priss]

We have had the Majic Jack for several months now and love it. We still have our regular house phone but use Majic Jack to make our long didtance calls. So far so good. Once in awhile we have a bad connection, but I just hang up and redial. We also have it hooked up to our walk around phone and can dial directly from the phone or from the control on the computer. Voice clarity is almost always very good.

[Squashman]

I got one, just to try it out. It certainly isn't a full replacement for your home phone but since most people have a Cell phone it could be. I wish it would run as a service. I don't like having to login to the computer to have it running.

[JStergis]

...so it's a voip type of thing?

I couldn't do that because I have DSL and thus need a phone line for internet. It really doesn't matter much to me anyway because our phone bill is only around 20/month (no caller id, call waiting, etc. of course) and we almost never make a long distance call.

[jvic]

Have had magic jack for about a month now.I hooked it up to a cheap computer I have which can stay on all the time.No problems at all with it..

[kr0nicle]

have magicjack running on g/f's pc, its great! we got one of those cordless phone sets, so there are 3 phones instead of one.

[EnfoToad]

It looks pretty good. I also have a set of 3 phones and plan on buying one to connect to the main phone.

[dannyn]

Is this a jack that in some way uses voip?

[DotHQ]

How do you get your phone number with MagicJack?
I have Voip with Vonage and it works well, but it costs 24.95 a month plus tax. Free calling all over the US & Canada though.

[JohnWill]

Yes, it's a VoIP device that uses your computer to do a lot of the work.

[dannyn]

what is the catch? why would it be so much cheaper? beacuse it uses your computer and is not standalone?

[DoubleHelix]

The "catch" is that your computer has to always be on and running for the service to work. If the computer isn't on, functioning, with the device/software properly installed and running, you can't make or receive calls. There may also be quality issues with VOIP. You can read more about the technology here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voip