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MagicJack Moving To Smartphones
robo45h writes "The late night infomercial VoIP company magicJack is moving into the smartphone space. The competition there is really going to be interesting. We have the likes of Skype and other VoIP companies competing against the wireless carriers still selling over-priced voice calls. It's such a big battle that the recent Verizon / Google Proposal specifically excludes (provides a loophole for) wireless. This has been brewing since cell phones added data capabilities, but it's coming to a head now." Free calls sounds nice, but it's worth noting that not everyone's happy with MagicJack's EULA.
My buddy uses MagicJack and his voice goes in and out constantly. It's like calling someone on a cell phone that is in a dead spot. Anyone else experience this?
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
the article: ... in Palm Beach, Florida."
MagicJack, a cheapie $20-a-year internet phone service, comes with a shriveled and shaking devil EULA: "Any claims, legal proceeding or litigation arising in connection with the magicJack device or Software will be resolved by binding arbitration
These kinds of clauses are nullified by law. Paypal discovered that during their litigation, when huge sections of their EULA were struck by the court as being over-ruled by consumer protection laws.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
http://www.fcc.gov/cib/consumerfacts/numbport.html
Background
Under the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC's) "local number portability" (LNP) rules, so long as you remain in the same geographic area, you can switch telephone service providers, including interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers, and keep your existing phone number. If you are moving from one geographic area to another, however, you may not be able to take your number with you. Therefore, subscribers remaining in the same geographic area can now switch from a wireless, wireline, or VoIP provider to any other wireless, wireline, or VoIP provider and still keep their existing phone numbers.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
VirginMobile sells pure data plans for phones or computers (via a USB antenna). $20 for 300 megabytes or $40 for 5 gigabytes
Cricket Broadband - their plan is $40 for 5 gigabytes of high speed, and unlimited dialup speed
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I've spent time cleaning up systems infected (yes, infected) due to MJ's mandatory advertising.
Having an attacker exploit an ad system is something all advertising networks have to deal with at one time or another.
Magic Jack is simply much less stringent about their requirements and have almost no followup
As such, Magic Jack may as well be classified a trojan.
I won't say that I wouldn't install their software if you paid me.
Fact is, I would, if the sum was large enough.
VMs are cheap afterall.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
We've had MagicJack for about 6 months.
I have it running on our entertainment center PC. Voice quality is OK. Sometimes people will call and noone is there, and there are other slight flakiness problems, but it is definitely worth $20 a year for unlimited long distance and local calling. I ditched Vonage, which was costing me $29 a month, for the service, and it is saving me roughly $300 a year.
My biggest complaint is that when you get a call or make a call the magicjack software interface pops to the foreground, interrupting whatever television happens to be being watched on the PC at the time. Kinda neat as you get caller ID that shows up, but annoying when the kids are watching TV and you have to go and push the media player to the front again whenever there is a call.
Another problem is frequently a Microsoft update will reboot my computer but the magic jack doesn't start unless I actually log in, which means people can't call us until I go and log into the computer.
All in all, I think it's a good service. Well worth $20 a year.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I'm making the switch from Comcast to MagicJack for my so-called pseudo "land line."
I have it running on a cheap Fit-PC Slim that is running the MagicJack software only, nothing else. I figure the $235 I spent for the Fit-PC Slim will be paid for pretty quickly due to (a) saving $25/month when I get rid of my Comcast line, and (b) running the MagicJack on a dedicated PC that sips power (it runs on only 10 watts!), rather than on my main PC that is an i7 behemoth with tons of cooling, etc. I can turn off my main PC when I'm away from it.
I have MagicJack voice mail messages e-mailed to my Gmail account, and from there I have a Gmail filter set up that sends a text message to my cell phone when a MagicJack voice mail comes in.
My Fit-PC Slim is remotely controlled from my main PC, so does not need a mouse, keyboard, monitor attached.
The MagicJack interface and the ads on the side of the window don't bother me because (a) I'm not using the interface at all; the MagicJack PC just sits there and does its job, functioning as a phone, and (b) I installed MagicBlock and MagicWho? to make it as invisible as possible.
So far, so good. The sound quality is at least as good as my Comcast line if not better. I'm hanging onto my Comcast line for a little while pending some more testing, but am expecting to get rid of it soon. Looking forward to the cost savings.
>>and a full years of unlimited phone service.
It's not unlimited. Believe me. I bought 2, one for me and one for the wife. Within 2 days they suspended her account for over usage. Their terms say they can do so if you exceed the average callers usage by a factor of 20. Of course, they don't tell you what the average is. No warning, just cut her off. Then, mine starting not working unless I restarted the software every time I wanted to make a call. Coincidence? I wouldn't know but since we share the same IP address I believe not. No problem, we took hers back, got our money back and I use mine to connect my cordless phones to Skype. Would not recommend that anyone buy Magic Jack.
You just used a lot of words to say that they don't really do much aside from cripple that data you're trying to use for SIP calls by prioritizing their own traffic above it. I don't bother with the cell network at all, as I'm pretty much always near wifi, and over a standard network, SIP call quality is fantastic. Over 3G, it sucks, and its only because of "QoS" crippling.
My Babylon