Magic Jack Product Flaws You
Have To Know About

Ahhh, so here we have the famous, or by now maybe infamous Magic Jack!

It's amazing how so many people can have such different experiences and opinions of something, and Magic Jack is no exception. Then again, they've sold something like two or three million of them, so there's plenty of opinions to be had.

"What we seem to have here is a failure to communicate" Remember that line from the famous Steve McQueen movie? Evidently that's MagicJacks problem too.

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See if you agree with me, at the end of the day this device, although a viable low rate VoIP phone option, is unfortunately relegated to the non-essential service category. Perhaps makes a good second line for the teenagers, or as the go to line for a home based business for unlimited outbound long distance needs during business hours. Read on for the down and dirty on this devilishly attractive little beauty!

So Who Is Magic Jack Anyway?

Let's forget for a moment that apparently the company that markets Magic Jack recently settled an allegation of some issue with the Florida Attorney General's office, this from the Palm Beach Better Business Bureaus' website:

Description: On April 15, 2009 Attorney General Bill McCollum announced that his Economic Crimes Division has reached a settlement with a Palm Beach County business over allegations the company marketed a “free” 30-day trial for its long distance phone equipment, but actually charged and debited consumers during the trial…

I'm sure there are lots of phone companies that get in trouble with State Regulatory agencies. Generally it's the Public Utilities Commission over some customer service or billing issue, not the Attorney Generals office for what? Lying to people? Economic crimes? I'm confused, I thought this was supposed to be cool and fun stuff all in the name of free internet long distance?

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Or simply click on the link below if you'd like a line or two of internet phone service to use with an existing analog phone like Magic Jack does.

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So Lets Move On

Imagine a phone company that doesn't offer phone support. You heard right. The only way to get support from this company is to initiate an on-line chat session. In fact they don't even have a phone number anywhere on their website. Huh? A phone company without a phone number? What's going on here?

Well I guess you could send an e-mail, or maybe a US postal snail mail? Nope, they don't publish any of that stuff either. Guess you better not need to talk with them huh?

Evidently these customer service chat sessions can become not only cumbersome, but protracted, frustrating experiences. Just imagine you've bought this cool new gadget that promises all kinds of free internet long distance and you can't get it to work, so you're relegated to typing out what's wrong and waiting for the other side to tell you what they think it might be "did you try turning off your computer and turning it back on?"… "yes"… "did that work?"…"no" … Me, I'd pull my hair out (if I had any left)

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Other customer service issues lurk in the darkness, back to the BBB report:

" The investigation further determined that the product had limitations which were not properly disclosed and that the company had a lack of sufficient customer service to address consumer complaints."

Ya think? No wonder they don't want to deal with anybody in person, it may not work to begin with, wow.

So if you've read much of my website, I guess you know I feel you generally get what you pay for, and Magic Jack is no exception. Although there are numerous reports of it working as advertised, there are also many saying it doesn’t work, and the customer apparently cannot get speedy telephone customer service if there is an issue.

Well folks, that's what you get for $20 a year – low rate VoIP and cheap phone service that better work, cause if it doesn't you're simply out of luck. You're not gonna get it fixed, or apparently get a refund either unless maybe you call the Attorney Generals office…

It's been reported that sometimes CSRs during chat sessions start to walk customers thru PC operating system registry changes, not good, especially since many issues will be network related like firewall and port issues.

If you have a customer service issue with Magic Jack you could try and email Dan (the guy who invented Magic Jack) at dan@magicjack.com I'm not sure if this works or not, but what the heck right? I also was able to find a number which is 561-594-2140, but this basically just tells you to start a chat session with your questions, but does have another phone number on the recording for billing issues. Hope this helps if you already own the product and are having issues.

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What Is Magic Jack?

It's a USB peripheral that has software on it that automatically installs on your PC, then an RJ-11 phone jack to plug in an analog handset / phone.

To uninstall the software, you reportedly must visit the companies website to obtain an uninstall program, as unlike most computer programs, Magic Jack doesn’t come with an uninstall utility.

Magic Jack also has a softphone built into the software for use on the PC , so you can make internet phone service calls with or without an analog handset.

All in all when it works, it works pretty well, my son has one and thinks it's great. But he's also a computer geek and has had a few issues that he could resolve himself, or with limited interaction using the chat service.

Calls are similar in quality to cell phone calls, Magic Jack provides three-way calling, call waiting, caller ID, voicemail, and call forwarding, the last two can be configured via web interface. It also has advisements of new voicemail to your e-mail, which can be nice if you're not near the phone or a PC to see one's waiting.

Most VoIP internet phone services require a dedicated piece of hardware; Magic Jack uses your PC to make the calls, that's part of why it's so cheap. The other part is there is little or no customer service, did I mention you get what you pay for?

So Magic Jack requires a tip top Windows installation, no IRQ conflicts and a good local area network (if applicable) and broadband internet connection. If the stars all align, then you're on your way to free internet long distance.

Shut off the PC, or go into stand by or hibernation and you've shut off your phone service, not so good for 911.

DTMF (touch tone) issues have been reported, probably due to a thin voice CODEC being used which doesn’t render the touch tones accurately. So bank by phone or punching in an extension number on a call might be problematic, but I'd think this could be as much a result of the internet connection as anything else.

This touch tone issue is by the way a common problem when using voice CODECs like G.729, which compress the voice transmission to the point it loses much of the ability to render DTMF tones properly.

Magic Jack Costs & Features

Cost for Magic Jack is about $40 first year which pays for the USB device, the included software and includes a year of unlimited local and long distance calling. Then $20 per year for service after that.

I won't go too deep into how it works, other than to say the termination (your call eventually has to be placed on the Public Switched Telephone Network or PSTN) is done by a very large phone company named YMAX that was for all intensive purposes built for the sale of Magic Jack. Let's hope they don't go out of business and leave 2.5 million people scrambling to port their numbers shall we?

Magic Jack is going to require a broadband Internet connection with a minimum of about 128/k upstream bandwidth, better to have 256/k. See my VoIP connections page to test your bandwidth before buying low rate VoIP like this.

MagicJack won't work over satellite connections, but then I haven't really seen a best effort satellite network that can carry VoIP anyway.

Magic Jack 911

And of course if this is your only phone in the house, make sure you properly register your location for E-911 purposes on the companies' website, and don't turn your PC off, or you have no 911 service. Oh by the way, don't let there be a power outage, a computer crash, a broken internet connection or a million other things that can happen when your phone is part of your computer, or you won't have 911 either.

Pssst, here's an E-Dude secret… forward your Magic Jack calls to your cell phone or landline before you shut off your PC, or if you're going away for a while. Doesn’t help the 911 issues, but at least you can continue to get calls directly without having to check two voicemail boxes.

On this note, remember to change your location for 911 services on the website when you put this thing in your pocket and go on vacation. You definitely don't want the ambulance showing up at home when you're at the summer house 500 miles away. But again, this is a common issue with internet phone services whenever you take a VoIP device like an IP handset and move it from the primary location.

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This is why I say Magic Jack might be a decent choice as a second line, and for free internet long distance but I personally wouldn't count on MagicJack or actually any other VoIP service for my primary 911.

Call me old fashioned, but when inclement weather knocks out the lights and internet, I love that good old central office dial tone coming out of my $10 Radio Shack handset. That goes double if I need to call 911 and triple to call my Momma to make sure she's OK.

So although Magic Jack has many of the cool features we've come to know and love about VoIP phone service, it's not a good choice for business VoIP and certainly not a good choice for those who would be relying on 911 service from this connection.

Big Brother Is Watching

Other unusual reports are that Magic Jack service actually hijacks outbound calls dialed to known third party conference bridges (audio conferencing services) and delivers you instead to the Magic Jack "free" service. Not sure this is good or bad, but personally if I dial a phone number, I want to get that person, not somewhere else someone thinks I should be talking to.

Although I have not been able to find the terms of service to see how this is allowed to happen, it fosters notions of an Orwellian scenario where they are watching and reacting to where you're calling and routing the call to another location. Additionally Magic Jack evidently also can display advertising on their PC softphone interface on your PC based on the types of businesses you have been calling! BIG BROTHER is watching you!

Lastly, as with any low rate VoIP service, check and make sure they have local numbers in your area, the last thing you want is your next door neighbor having to dial long distance to tell you he'll be late for the game…

Oh, there is an annoying pop up window on the PC the Magic Jack is hooked into when making or receiving calls, so if you're working on the PC and someone else is making a call you'll go mad. I found some free third party software that can suppress this, click here .

Troubleshooting Magic Jack

OK, so final words of advice, in no particular order (you know I'm that way, right?)

+Order on the website or walk into Radio Shack or Best Buy instead of calling in, the phone process can be confusing and you can end up with charges you didn't count on.

+Watch for firewall and other computer or LAN configuration issues. Remember we are doing VoIP internet phone services here, so we have NAT traversal issues and so forth, but you'll have this with any cheap VoIP service.

+Keep away from strong radio sources, evidently can mess with the device.

+Beware of using 2.4 GHZ cordless phone and 2.4 GHZ Wi-Fi at same time. Nothing is more aggravating than trying to figure out why your VoIP internet phone service isn't working and it's the internet connection you're trying to talk on interfering with it to begin with!

+Plug Magic Jack into a visible USB port so you can always see if the activity light is on and it's ready for use. Like any itty-bitty USB device, it can get bumped or eaten by the dog, and obviously you're not making any calls after that…

Have Internet Already
And Only Need A Line Or Two?

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