Happy Camper-- MagicJack

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Okay, I've been using a MagicJack for a couple of years, now-- 3?  Yes.. it's been at least three years since I bought this thing-- I've renewed twice, and I got a free year with the initial purchase.

I run it on a dedicated, ancient laptop barely running Windoze XP, with a PMCIA card serving up the USB2.0 and NET connections-- the card is externally powered, via a separate switching power supply.  Up until last week, it just worked.   Sure the call quality was occasionally scratchy, but what did I expect for a measly $20/year?   

I'm so happy with this thing, as an adequate alternative to my cell phone, that I set my mother up with the same thing:  a cheap, used laptop running Windoze XP, and a dedicated cordless phone direct to the 'jack itself.  She strictly uses it for long distance, and did not give the number out-- she wants the mental security of a dedicated, traditional land-line (even though she's really on a VOIP thing through COX's digital telephone service... shhhh... don't tell her that). 

On the third paw, by having 3 things with Cox, she essentially gets one of them for free... so it would not save her anything to disconnect it... okay, back to subject at hand.

Last week?  Month?  I forget how far back, but my boss/business partner's US cell phone just stopped working in inbound calls to my 'jack.  I could easily call out on the 'jack, and I could receive all sorts of other calls on it, but not his.  Then today, my mother's cell stopped working in-bound too.  (they each would resort to my cell, no big dealio, but I'd like it fixed... the cell is not always handy... unlike the 4 cordless handsets I have strategically placed about my house...)

So today?  I decided 'what the heck' and went To The Google...    (and yes... I'm old enough to remember when I could not do that...)

All sorts of interesting sh1t as per the usual Googleing results with to broad of a keyword search... narrow... .narrow... too-narrow... back off.. there... a forum of MagicJack users.   How about that?

A couple of hours reading, and I did not learn all that much, apart from the problem was plaguing the MJ system last November for a long time, then that thread just died... I'd presume the problem was fixed?  Nothing newer than May with regards to incoming calls not connecting.   Hmmm.   One lonely post lamenting that US cell did not income with his jack, but no follow-on, nothing newer than last month.

Sooo..... lots of posts about chats with CS -- apparently that is the >sole< method of talking to the MJ people.. and they do it via multitasking, too- it was obvious (once I got onto chat) that my "helper" was helping me and probably 10 others all at the same time...  I do >>not<< envy those customer support chat people!  I've done CS myself, and I can only imagine the nightmare of multiple windows going at once....! 

Anyway, I started out with the usual front-runner (who know very little).  I quickly out-lined all that I'd already tried, explained my setup (a dedicated laptop, an externally-powered USB -- plenty of 5v watts, my PC is set to automatically reboot daily at 5 am, using the proper shut-down, restart from within windows (task scheduling at work, here-- simple as eggs-- I can 'splain if anyone wants) etc, etc)

The I outlined my specific problem-- certain Telco exchanges went directly to the "unavailable" message (I have no voicemail setup on my 'jack, by design).   Of course this was 'way beyond the first tech, but I'll give him credit, he did not ask me to do stupid sh1t with my PC like rebooting it...

The next tech re-read all that I wrote (at >50wpm, I tried to include everything).  Took her too long, which is why I suspect she was working several conversational threads.   Poor her....

... anyway, she asked me to pull the 'jack dongle, and wait.

Then after about 8 minutes (of which she did say she was still working) wait, she had me plug it back in... it sorta worked, but got hung-up on the splash.   Next she started out a series of step-by-steps-- I said, "hold a sec, can you give me all the steps at once?  The laptop with the jack is in the other room"  And to my ever-lovin' surprise?  She did exactly that-- and a quick-read-over, she basically wanted me to un-hide system files & folders.   Okay, that's already setup on my laptop, so I asked, and she confirmed this was what she'd been after.

Next she has me run from within my profile/application data/magicjack... a setup.exe... I confirmed this was so, and I ran it... same thing, only this time it went to "log in".  And it was then, that I remembered this morning I'd changed the email/password on my account.  Silly me, I had assumed that 3 hours later, that info would have been passed back to my magic jack dongle... how naive of me to presume their equipment talks to it's servers...

Anyway, proper credentials, and it started up just peachy-- well, as best as it is able on that ancient laptop-- kinda slow.    (but the price was right.. free... )

Now to test it-- with the tech still willing to wait!  Imagine that!  (I was surprised, actually...) so... dial-tone?  Check.  Dial time/temp?  Check.  Okay, call one of the offending numbers-- greeted by a loud noise, which I presumed to be "still a problem".

Back to the chat, let her know I was still testing.. she was still there... (to my surprise).

A call to my mother's landline-- check.  Ask her to call me on her cell?  It worked!  yaaay!..... Back to the other loud-noise thing-- how about that?  It connected this time.. he was on his mower, and did not realized the phone had connected at all... the sound I heard was the muffler...    so had him call the 'jack, and viola!  It worked, too.

Yaay.  All fixed.  So before I loged off with the tech, I put it to her:  could I get a new MJ plus (what don't need a pc to run) and have that on my existing number/account?  And would said purchase extend my account by a year? 

Yes, and yes-- just order the thing, and connect to their chat before activating it-- they would force-connect it to my existing account. 

So I may well do that, and drop the ancient laptop, except for re-activation of the jack each year.

Success. 

As J.E. Pournelle has often said?  It just works. 

[Griffin NoName]

Not quite clear on this. Was it running the setup.exe and sorting the password that cured it?

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Not quite clear on this. Was it running the setup.exe and sorting the password that cured it?

LOL, my bad-- no, that was just a manual restart, from when it failed to start initially.

After thinking about it some more?  I was simply too impatient-- the laptop is an ancient machine, barely able to work Win XP, even stripped-down as it is.   I should have waited longer.

It was the changing of the password I did earlier, that caused the seeming boot failure.

Whatever she did at her end, when my 'jack was disconnected, is what fixed it-- likely she reset the TELCO routing table associated with my 'jack.   I'm pretty sure this info is stored on a server--it'd have to be-- such that, if an outside TELCO initiates a call to my 'jack, the 'jack-server knows which magic jack to route the call to.

For some reason, the server attached to my 'jack had dropped inbound calls from US Cell TELCO's numbers, causing all such calls to go directly to voicemail-- only since I never set one up?  It went to "unavailable" message instead.

It works, now.

[Sibling DavidH]

THis Magic Jack sounds like an excellent idea, but it seems it only works in the USA and Canada.  That's presumably why I'd never heard of it.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

THis Magic Jack sounds like an excellent idea, but it seems it only works in the USA and Canada.  That's presumably why I'd never heard of it.

It is basically a VOIP (voice over internet protocol) device, with all the VOIP hard-coded onto a neat little dongle.

It also contains voltage translation hardware, such that an ordinary US handset is adapted to operate on the 5volts the dongle gets from a powered USB port (mandatory, that).   I seem to remember the US telco standard is 35v, but very low wattage, to power ordinary telco handsets.  Canada must be similar.

Overseas?  Probably not so much, but there is plenty of testimony of people buying US handsets from overseas, and one of these, and choosing a USA or Canadian Area Code and using it to talk to people in the US/Canada from overseas, via the intertubes.

When you buy one of these infernal thingys, you are asked to choose an area code-- you are allowed to pick one from literally anywhere in the USA/Canada as far as I can tell.  Then, if you want to activate 911 service (emergency services) you must populate a street address consistent with your area code choice.   As far as I know, this step (address) is optional, but 911 won't work if you don't fill it out.  That may not be an issue-- not, if you are using it overseas.

I also know (from the 'jack forums) that many folk buy one of these to generate a "local" area code for a city they do not live in, thus giving people in that city, a local calling number direct to them.  Something I'd already thought of myself.  If I was still in the software business?  I'd buy 3 of these, and generate local numbers for at least 3 of my busiest cities, so that people local to those could easily get in touch with me without long distance charges... at $20US a year, it would have been seriously cheaper than an inbound 800 number's cost-per-annum.

So if you want to talk to someone in North America?  Go to N.A. Amazon (or your favorite vendor) and buy one, and I'd strongly suggest purchasing a cheap US telco handset too, and if you have high-speed intertubes?  They are easy enough to setup.  You may wish to contact your US counterpart for a phantom address to match your chosen Area Code, though.

The bottom line is I do not think they have non-North American Area Codes available, thus using it for calls to and from Europe would not work.

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There are several alternatives to Magic Jack out there-- you just have to search.  VOIP seems to be the "magic" keyword.  Let me see...

... okay WIKI has too much info about VOIP (surprised?  not really... )   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_over_Internet_Protocol but at the end, a list of a few VOIP providers.  SKYPE, is the most renown, obviously.

Okay, here is a redundant, but slightly different Wiki entry:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_over_IP and the stuff at the end of it is different... more choices for VOIP.

Hmmmm... I'll keep looking... now this looks interesting:  http://www.voip-info.org/  It purports to be a reference for "all things VOIP"... and has a table/chart of various VOIP providers.  Wheither it is or not, you'll have to judge for yourself.

But I'd be very surprised if there were not someone, somewhere who either is or already has created a "magic jack" equivalent for your local TELCO.  

I'd try to avoid contract-based services myself, because I like the option of simply walking away if things go pear-shaped.



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Update.  If I decide (for whatever) to kick MJ to the curb?  I'm looking strongly at this thing http://www.nettalk.com/.  Cost a wee bit more, and it's Canada based.  But it appears to be a bit more robust than the MJ counterpart.

And I found two more VOIP providers:

Vonage
Ooma

These may have a presence in your area.