MagicJack is a newly offered Voice over IP (VOIP) device that has just launched. In a perfect world you can purchase this small device for $40 plus shipping, plug it into your broadband internet computer via the USB port then any home phone plugs into the MagicJack. The company states you will be making unlimited calls both local and long distant for free. After the first year you must renew at $20. Yes I said year. "To bad this is not a perfect world". You receive a phone number so people can call you but I found the area codes are sparse, No Indiana codes at all were in the group. I picked a phone number in or near Cleveland Ohio. This is not a real big drawback as I will be making calls not receiving calls. People calling me can just call my regular phone number as they have always done in the past. I found that when I plugged MagicJack into the computer nothing happened at all. My computer did not recognize it at all. I tried another computer and nothing. I then plugged in a powered USB hub, then the MagicJack into the hub. This time the computer recognized the device and went onto installing the software and upgrade it needed to activate. You type in a few questions it asks like your address for 911 & what area code you want. I found that after the install using the hub it would work without the hub, Why ? I don't have a clue. In the left pain of the software window that is displayed you can click to have it open your browser. This will not work on my system. It opens up Internet Explorer but I use FireFox as my default browser. As a work around I copy and past the URL into FireFox and it displays the the URL OK. I called a few people both long distance and local finding I could hear the party I was calling perfect, but the person that was called said they could hear a clicking noise on their end. I found the quality as good or better than a cell phone connection. By the way I called a cell phone number and it worked OK but it dropped out a few times but it was the cell phone's problem as the party was in a fringe area. I also found there is no voice phone contact to the MagicJack company. It has no email address either. If you want to return it before the 30 day trial is up you are in for a surprise as it took me the best part of an hour to get a return authorization number (RMA) to send it back. Here is the URL to obtain the RMA:
http://support.magicjack.com/EmailForm.php
Make sure you keep your sales slip (print it out) and everything that comes in the package, as you must send all of this back for a refund. Send it to:
RMA:_______
magicJack LP
PO Box 6846
West Palm Beach, FL 33405
To sum MagicJack up, If you are a advanced user and consider yourself a somewhat geek MagicJack might be for you. But my advice would be to wait for improvments..........jack