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MagicJack Moving To Smartphones

Posted by timothy on from the don't-restrict-yourself-to-spyware-at-home dept.

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.

10 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Good... by rbarreira · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's about time the phone companies recognized that phone calls are just data passing through their networks.

    I know they don't want to be seen as purely "bit carriers" which don't add much value, but that's what they are.

    --

    The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
    1. Re:Good... by Animats · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's about time the phone companies recognized that phone calls are just data passing through their networks.

      Actually, no. Voice over IP over cellular data is an incredibly inefficient way to send voice. Worse, all the ad-related blithering in "free" applications uses more bandwidth than the call.

      The best phone audio quality today is with an ISDN voice phone. End to end digital, end to end synchronized at the bit level, full duplex, no need for echo cancellation, no lag beyond speed of light lag. Many home phones in Switzerland have worked that way for a decade.

      It's disappointing. We ought to have CD-quality telephony by now. But instead, audio quality has gotten worse. The phone network is 64Kb/s: 8KHz sampling of 8-bit samples. That's PC audio circa late 1980s. Cell phones don't even deliver that; they use very lossy compression.

    2. Re:Good... by localman57 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      We ought to have CD-quality telephony by now.

      Why? 8 bit 64k is perfectly adequate for voice. If we have spare cash to spend on communicaitons, spend it somewhere else, on something that isn't perfectly adequate, or that benefits substantially from improvment. If we get better voice quality as a side effect, great! But it isn't something to focus on.

      Now run along. I think I saw some vinyl records in the other room you can play with.

    3. Re:Good... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Even as a bit carrier, there are two valuable services on top of just carrying bits:
      • Quality of service guarantees.
      • POTS bridging.

      My mobile phone came with a SIP client, and when I am near a WiFi access point I can call any other SIP users for free. Most people don't (yet?) have a SIP address though, so most calls go to my SIP provider who then routes them to a POTS number. This kind of bridging is something that carriers currently offer, but they bundle it with data, so you pay for the call as a single item, rather than for the bandwidth and the bridging as separate items. I'd love to see legislation forcing them to bill the two separately and offer the same rates for the data part irrespective of who you use for termination.

      Quality of service is also very important for voice. GSM quality uses about 5MB an hour. The bandwidth requirements are tiny - a minute of a YouTube video will use more than an hour of talking - but latency and (especially) jitter make a big difference to the perceived quality of the call. Giving higher priority to voice traffic (e.g. reserving some fraction of the available bandwidth for each call) is a valuable service above and beyond just shuffling bits.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    4. Re:Good... by Capt.+Skinny · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I doubt that much innovation ever followed the phrase "perfectly adequate."

  2. magicjack EULA is nulled by State or Federal law by commodore64_love · · Score: 5, Informative

    the article:
    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 ... in Palm Beach, Florida."

    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
  3. Re:Skype VOIP over wireless? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Most people have wireless data plans

    No, no they don't.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  4. Just getting started with MagicJack by ITBurnout · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  5. Re:Keep it in perspective by black6host · · Score: 5, Informative

    >>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.

  6. Re:Majic Jack Quality? by Artard · · Score: 4, Funny

    Why don't you just walk upstairs from the basement and talk in person?