MagicJack & Alternatives: Part 2

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JGoodish

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JGoodish
I couple years ago, I asked about experiences with MagicJack. Just checking in with folks to see if anything has changed.

When we're home, we will usually pick up the home phone for outbound calls, but we keep the number mainly to give out to people who ask for a number but to whom we do not want to provide a mobile number. This doesn't necessarily mean that the inbound call wouldn't be somewhat important, only that we don't want to unknowingly volunteer our mobile numbers for marketing lists.

I've had VoIP home phone service for years, first with a VoIP provider, then with an on-prem Asterisk system, and finally I moved to a self-managed 3CX installation on Amazon Lightsail paired with a Grandstream ATA (and SIP trunking provider). The latter setup has been working fine, but does require some periodic maintenance and probaby runs me $120-$150/year between SIP and Lightsail charges. The prospect of cutting that to $40-60/year and not having to deal with the maintenance is appealing.

So, I bought a MagicJack. Getting it to work was interesting. No problem with the activation on the computer (though their Mac software is incredibly poor), but I could not get it to work when plugged into either of two routers that I tried. I eventually suspected the need for a crossover cable, which was correct, but it was odd that MDI-X didn't autonegotiate with this device on either of the two routers from different manufacturers. I also discovered that it's important that the device receive adequate power, because a lower-power USB port will light the lights but the device won't work. There is *no* visibility to see what's happening on the MagicJack device aside from the lights, which will happily show normal indications even when things aren't working.

Once the device was working, some inbound and outbound test calls worked fine. There appears to be no CID name support, presumably inbound or outbound--not necessarily a big deal for us. I have a Panasonic cordless phone which works fine, but my HP LaserJet Pro MFC complains of "Line In Use" since it is connected for fax (which I've used less than once per year). Not sure of the cause, but I assume the off-quality MagicJack hardware isn't providing proper line voltage; I do not have this issue with my Grandstream ATA.

In summary, I really don't need the fax, but I'm not sure of reliability of the MagicJack hardware or service, and am nervous about porting my number to a company whose customer service reputation seems to be at the ocean's bottom. Just curious to get some feedback on long-term reliability (and possibly tips) for those who have been MagicJack customers.
 
We have had MagicJack for years. I set up my Mother with one as well. It works, although the fidelity isn't the greatest. Hardware wise, I had one unit fail probably after four years of use. The replacement has been running OK for the last four years. The price for the service has gone up 50% since we started and every year we consider letting the "land line" go but always seem to renew. The most annoying thing is the canned messages reminding you to renew...
 
JGoodish said:
Aside from my strong dislike of Google, the biggest problem with GV in the past was porting the number, as it is a land line number and GV would only let you port in mobile numbers. Has that changed?
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I have Obihai and GV. Works great. As far as porting the landline number, the procedure is to buy a throwaway phone, port your landline number to it, then then port that to GV. There's more detailed instructions available if you Google it, but that's the gist. If you want 911 service, it's $4 a. Month.
 
Chip Sylverne said:
I have Obihai and GV. Works great. As far as porting the landline number, the procedure is to buy a throwaway phone, port your landline number to it, then then port that to GV. There's more detailed instructions available if you Google it, but that's the gist. If you want 911 service, it's $4 a. Month.
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That is the process I'm familiar with from the past, but honestly, seems like way too much time and effort when there are other services available. And I'd prefer Google not have access to my call records and voice mails.
 
We've had Ooma for years now. Only problem has been the interface going down a couple of times a year and needed their system to recognize that it's not online for a while and resetting things. I can log in from any computer and check messages and call logs and determine what to do with each. I rarely answer the number it's on, but do check for messages every day or two. Sure cut down dealing with scammers and time wasters.
 
Craig said:
We've had Ooma for years now. Only problem has been the interface going down a couple of times a year and needed their system to recognize that it's not online for a while and resetting things. I can log in from any computer and check messages and call logs and determine what to do with each. I rarely answer the number it's on, but do check for messages every day or two. Sure cut down dealing with scammers and time wasters.
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Ooma seems like a good alternative as well. What is the monthly cost (assuming that you don't have "premium" services?

I'm not set against MagicJack; still testing it. It (like Ooma) seems to get fairly good reviews, assuming that folks can get it working and don't need tech support.
 
JGoodish said:
Ooma seems like a good alternative as well. What is the monthly cost (assuming that you don't have "premium" services?
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It depends on where you live, for a lot of it. My most recent Ooma monthly charges:

911 Service Fee:$1.00
Regulatory Compliance Fee:$1.69
Local Interconnection Recovery Fee:$2.46
Ne Telecomm Relay Surcharge:$0.03
Douglas Co 911 Surcharge:$0.50
Local Business&occupation Tax:$0.34
State Sales Tax:$0.31
City Sales Tax:$0.09
Ne Universal Service:$1.75
Total:$8.17​

We've had it for a couple of years now. I do pay for Premium... don't recall why, but there was a reason. It includes Nomorobo, which does a fair job of heading off a lot of telemarketers and robocallers. However, as the scumbags started using randomly selected local area code/prefix that has become less effective. I finally had to send all calls from numbers not in our contact list to voicemail.
 
DaleB said:
It depends on where you live, for a lot of it. My most recent Ooma monthly charges:
...​
We've had it for a couple of years now. I do pay for Premium... don't recall why, but there was a reason. It includes Nomorobo, which does a fair job of heading off a lot of telemarketers and robocallers. However, as the scumbags started using randomly selected local area code/prefix that has become less effective. I finally had to send all calls from numbers not in our contact list to voicemail.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I was able to get MagicJack stable, and voice quality certainly seems acceptable but not quite as good as my 3CX/ATA/Flowroute setup. Faxing in particular appears to be very unreliable over MagicJack, but only on rare occasions do I have to fax.
 
JGoodish said:
Thanks. I was able to get MagicJack stable, and voice quality certainly seems acceptable but not quite as good as my 3CX/ATA/Flowroute setup. Faxing in particular appears to be very unreliable over MagicJack, but only on rare occasions do I have to fax.
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I was using Asterisk on a little Linux box, an Obi box, and Flowroute prior to Ooma. That was when they offered unlimited inbound for something like $6.95 a month, with dirt cheap outbound. Then they killed that plan, and my account along with it... they were going to cost as much as our local telco/cable company. I liked the total control I had; I disliked the amount of time I spent fighting robocalls and telemarketers.
 
We have the obi with Google voice as well as another account with ooma. The ooma fax is very unreliable. The obi faxes without issue. The ooma costs about $17 monthly for the service we have. The Google voice is free. I was unable to port my number into google voice but ooma was able to do it without trouble.
The Google voice transcribes messages from voice mail and sends them to me instantly as an email which is very nice.
 
Forgot to mention... Asterisk/Flowroute VoIP would handle faxes with no problem at all. That said, none ever involved an actual FAX machine. I set up a FAX-out extension on Asterisk with an email script... I'd send an email to <number>@fax.out, and Asterisk would send it. I could even include text for a cover page. It worked slick as all hell. Scan a page or take a pic with my cell phone, poof! Instant FAX. Incoming FAX were delivered as email with PDF attachments.

It didn't take long to set up, but it was used so rarely that I don't miss it now. On the exceedingly rare occasions someone askes for a FAX, I offer to email them a scan. That has worked so far. We have an ancient printer/scanner/FAX here, but as far as I can recall it hasn't been connected to a phone line in close to a decade.
 
DaleB said:
I was using Asterisk on a little Linux box, an Obi box, and Flowroute prior to Ooma. That was when they offered unlimited inbound for something like $6.95 a month, with dirt cheap outbound. Then they killed that plan, and my account along with it... they were going to cost as much as our local telco/cable company. I liked the total control I had; I disliked the amount of time I spent fighting robocalls and telemarketers.
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My Flowroute bill is ~$20 every 2-3 months; Amazon Lightsail ~$5/month. We don't make or receive a many calls, so I don't follow the SIP charges that closely, but they've definitely gone up over time. I do get a ton of telemarketers, but I just never answer. When I was running Asterisk, I had it set up to intercept inbound calls and require user interaction in order to put the call through, which seemed to help mitigate the robocalls but confused some legitimate callers (such as banks). I noticed that MagicJack has a similar type of feature.

As for fax, the only places which still seem to require it are banks and medical offices, with the former much less than the latter. For documents containing PII/PHI, I think fax is more secure than unencrypted email, but to be honest I can't remember the last time I had to send or receive a fax.

I will probably forward my current setup to the MagicJack number for a while to see how stable it is before I port my number.
 
My parents didn’t want to get rid of their landline, but AT&T was getting ridiculous! I switched them last October to Callcentric and a Cisco ATA I bought years ago for $20. Unlimited inbound is $5.95/mo and 120 mins outbound for $1.95/mo. A substantial savings for them.
 
Faxing doesn’t work properly over compressed SIP. You have to select a CODEC (usually G.711) that is uncompressed for fax to work assuming nearly zero packet loss.

As far as the line-in-use goes, see if the dumb HP device needs the polarity reversed on the loop pair first — easy test — to make sure the problem is the magic jack.
 
We have been on Ooma for a couple of years now. The only bill is the telecommunications taxes, in NC about $6.50/month. Quality is fine and you register your physical address for 911 service. Technology wise, it is a network device, so plug it in and it connects. Never had it not connect. When we move, I think it’s just a matter of plugging it in at the new location and updating our address.

The only negative was the startup. I felt they didn’t explain billing well, which meant unexpected fees for porting our old landline number and they insisted on assigning us a new number as the primary. On startup you get extended service for free, a bunch of features like call blocking and three way calling, you may or may not want them. When the extended service expires after about 3 months, only the primary number will be kept, so make sure that’s the one you want when it is set up.

Otherwise, it’s been great. I can’t believe we spent so much money paying the phone companies for so long.
 
denverpilot said:
Faxing doesn’t work properly over compressed SIP. You have to select a CODEC (usually G.711) that is uncompressed for fax to work assuming nearly zero packet loss.

As far as the line-in-use goes, see if the dumb HP device needs the polarity reversed on the loop pair first — easy test — to make sure the problem is the magic jack.
Click to expand...

Fax really needs T.38 to be reliable over IP, but on my in-house system I only allow G.711 and it works most of the time. When I permitted other codecs, I ran into issues with some gateways wanting G.729 or not negotiating properly and then even voice calls would be lousy.

I may be turning down that system if MagicJack works well enough for voice, and I suspect that MJ either uses compression or permits it. We really don’t use the home phone for much other than a call screening destination.

As for the line in use issue, I haven’t had a chance to do testing on it but I am curious about it, so I’ll probably still look into even though I disconnected the fax.
 
I have used OOMA for years. Hard to beat free phone service. Actually, you do have to pay required taxes and 911 fees.
 
JGoodish said:
Fax really needs T.38 to be reliable over IP, but on my in-house system I only allow G.711 and it works most of the time. When I permitted other codecs, I ran into issues with some gateways wanting G.729 or not negotiating properly and then even voice calls would be lousy.
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Yeah. I’ve never seen carriers consistently and properly implement T.38 though. Like you I’ve “gotten away with” straight G.711 consistently enough by asking for that upstream that it negates the need.

We’ve been seeing certain cellular carriers actually accept the so called “HD” Codecs sometimes which sounds nice but rarely helps a fax machine out. Ha.
 
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