Vonage or Magic Jack

[Tricia McLaughlin]

Has anyone ever used either? If so, what are the pros and cons? I just looked at the Vonage site and it's very tempting.

TIA,
Tricia

[Janet]

Hey Tricia,

I just saw you can get a 30-day free trial on Magic Jack's website.

Here's the info. on overseas calls:

YES! magicJack allows you to call almost anywhere in the world.

Call from your magicJack from any country to the U.S. and Canada and the call is free.
Call from a magicJack to a magicJack in any country and the call is free.
Call from the U.S. or Canada to the U.S. or Canada and the call is free.
Call from your magicJack to another country, other than the U.S. or Canada, and you must prepay for international minutes.

[Linda Wilson]

Can I keep my landline? And use MJack like a spare phone line going through computer? (With no interference between the two?)

[Naola "Sam" Vaughn]

Calls are free to Canada and Mexico, and there's per minute charges to other countries overseas. About the highest I saw is 5 cents/minute. However, if you have only one household/person you call in the UK all the time and they have a high-speed internet connection, you can order a magic jack for them, have it sent to you, you get a "local" or US phone number, send them the magic jack and they call call you for free or you can call their magic jack number for free. It even explains that on the MJ website. I like my MJ and will be disconnecting my home phone as soon as they have it set up to where I can port my home # into my MJ. But I have my home phone set to the VERY basic service thru the phone company. I'm tired of paying the phone companies all that money every month as well. I just shaved off about $170/mo between land line service and cell phone service by switching to MJ for home and Walmart Straight Talk for cell.

[Tricia McLaughlin]

Thanks, Cindy. I wonder if anyone else has had this problem or if it has been resolved. Curious. Thanks for responding, Tricia

[Janet]

Linda,

You can keep both. There won't be any interference between the two.

Janet

[Tricia McLaughlin]

Janet,

Thanks for looking up the info. It won't hurt to try the 30-day freebie. You answered a lot of my questions today when we talked, and now, the non-decision maker (s) is in a more decisive mood.

Hope you got the voice mail that my plan didn't work out. I had to go back up there. Oh, well, can't blame a girl for trying! :-)

Thanks again, Tricia

[Stephanie P Borthwick]

I'm planning on buying Magic Jack in the next day or two. My dad has it in Mexico and it even works there with a US number to dial him. He said it doesn't work well with cordless phones, but if you have an old plug in it is fine. I'm going to try it for sure.

[Naola "Sam" Vaughn]

I use mine with my cordless and it works fine. However, I have found that if you don't have the higher speed of "high speed" internet, it tends to cut out. AT&T offers three speeds in my area for "high speed" internet, and, unbeknownst to me, they had lowered my internet speed when my 6 mos at the lower rate/higher speed ran out. Anyway, after getting my MJ and having some issues with it cutting out, I called AT&T to check my internet speed and found out it was at the lowest. Once I had them increase it to the highest available, the MJ phone (cordless) works just wonderful. Their web site does say you may have to try a couple different phones to see which works best, and it could also be your internet speed. MJ works wonderfully with cable internet because my friend has it, and that's who got me interested.

[Mary Jo Cochran]

Vonage!!!!! I have both Magicjack and Vonage.

Magicjack is super cheap - but it's super irritating. You plug it into your computer. Everytime I log on, I have to wait for Magicjack to do its set up (a minute of patience for a lifetime of savings) - maybe, but it irritates the hell out of me beyond belief.

Major problem with Magicjack. People say, "What's that beeping?" I don't hear it, but everyone else does.
I've actually had friends say they didn't want to talk to me because that beeping was driving them crazy.
If you use your phone for professional calls, you do not want anyone complaing about the beeping - you may lose business. I have also had calls where the person couldn't hear me.

I recently got Vonage. It has it's own box. No problems at all. The only trick to Vonage in the setup (which took me a very long time) - is once you have everything connected, then you have to turn EVERYTHING OFF, and turn it back on, or it won't set up.