Random Musings

Success with Magic Jack

I'm not in the habit of endorsing any product. Being a curmudgeon, I prefer criticizing. Nevertheless I have to report that the Magic Jack is working out perfectly. This is the story.

In the process of downsizing, I switched from cable to FIOS, which in itself is worthwhile as my internet speed went from 10 megabits to between 20 and 24 depending on the time of day, and I eliminated a phone line. I enrolled in Skype's unlimited US plan for 3 months to test its suitability to my lifestyle. You don't get a phone number and you make calls using a headphone, which is a plus and minus. It's hands free but I don't like using a headset all the time. Skype is only useful for outgoing call though. You can buy SkypeIn for incoming calls but it only comes to your computer. If your computer is off or you are in a different room you may not hear it. You can't attach it to telephones or to your phone system throughout your house or office.

I like the idea of a phone so I thought I'd try Magic Jack, which almost sounds too good to be true. I picked it up from Best Buy and plugged it into a USB port on my laptop. It booted up and popped up a window asking for registration data, ie what userid and password I wanted, my name and address so that I could be traced if I called 911, and what area code and prefix I wanted. It assigned the last 4 digits. I plugged in a phone into the other end of the Magic Jack and made a call. Simple. I was surprised with the clarity. I called it from another phone and the phone ran. It works.

I had some experience with the Magic Jack before, since a friend owns one and he called me numerous times, so I could gauge the quality of the call and I thought it was only pretty good with occasional lapses of sound and occasional breakups. I decided I could live with lesser quality on a second line that I would use only when necessary. To my surprise however, the clarity within my installation is great and there are no sound breakups or echos. That may be because I have a fast broadband connection and my friend is running DSL with a maximum speed of 2.9 megabits, only about 12% of my speed.

My next test sold me on the Magic Jack. I have a multi-line phone system. The incoming phone lines are plugged into the pbx and get distributed to all the phones. I ran a phone line from the Magic Jack into the PBX and, voila, all the phones now have the Magic Jack number! When I call, all the phones ring. I was shocked. I tried calling out and calling in and everything works just the way any phone should.

Now, of course, the line would go dead if I shutdown my laptop, or took the laptop with me when I left. So I decided to connect the Magic Jack to an old slow server I have running all the time. I wasn't sure if it could keep up with the Magic Jack, being a 2.0 ghz pentium 4,with only 512MB RAM running XP. It's being used as a print server and a web server to test web sites I'm developing. It's running Apache, mySQL, and SQL Server, but to my surprise the phone quality is still great.

So the moral of the story is:
Have a fast broadband connection
A slow computer is fine
Keep your computer on and connected
It's best to use a computer that you're not on all the time. A window pops up every time there's a call (in or out), and I can see how that would be annoying.

So that's my Magic Jack story.

posted by David Tyme @ 8:51 PM