I'm trying out the MagicJack device tonight. I ordered the free trial - "free" as in, "We don't charge your credit card so long as you send the device back to us within exactly 2,592,000 seconds... starting... 3-2-1, NOW!" (That's 30 days, for those of you that don't habla...)
It arrived within 3 days of ordering via First Class USPS, so no need to pay extra for faster shipping... Arrived inside my smallish mailbox in a 5" x 7" foam-packed envelope. The device itself being 3" x 2" and about an inch thick. A USB connection on one end, and a RJ-11 phone jack on t'other.
Plug it into a USB port, and it connects two flash drives: one appears to be the drivers and software needed to run the device - a softphone pops up automagically in a few seconds - and the other drive is probably storage dedicated to the device, perhaps storing your ID or assigned phone number, call history, whatever... although I suppose some of those data are stored on the MagicJack servers.
First time you use it, you enter your location details (required for the E911 service that the device provides), and then you pick a telephone number (no, you can't use your existing phone number.) My own town's exchanges were not available, but the next town over was, so no problem. But I understand that local numbers can be spotty in some areas - a bit like CompuServe or Quantum Link numbers back in the day... (You see kids, before the Internets, we used to have to DIAL in with MODEMs to BBSes with proprietary... oh, never mind...)
Afer the setup process of about 5 minutes, the first person I called was... ME... my POTS land line. I was slightly disappointed but not surprised to find that the call quality was not good... HOWEVER, as I said, "not surprised" because I happened to be downloading a large file at the time (Ubuntu 10.04 LTS if you must know...) So after I finished my download, and after I chased my kids off their YouTubes, streaming Pandoras, µtorrents and whatnot, I found the call quality to be quite good. At least as good as the real land-line, and this is on the slowest connection that DSL Extreme offers (testing at about 620kbps down and 320kbps up tonight.)
Voicemail kicks in if you happen to have no Magic in your Jacks at the moment, or you just let the phone ring four times. However, the voicemail thinks your 11-digit number is an "extension", and the system appears to be sitting on the East Coast, since that's the time being used to stamp the messages. Minor annoyance.
The device is completely portable; since it remembers your number, and contains all the software embedded in the device, you can plug it in to any Windows PC (XP, Vista, 7... I've only used it with Windows 7 so far...) or, allegedly, Mac ...if you happened to leave your stinkin' iPhone in a Beer Garden, that is... I can't imagine many Mac users will be attracted to something designed to save money.
One overall caveat... some folks who're not way into the whole capitalism thing or are really privacy-sensitive may become slightly annoyed that the software includes advertising that might use location data derived from number you dial as ad targeting information. The ad space is not that large, but I'm not sure I've seen all their tricks yet. Be aware.
All in all, so far, so good. But I'll wait until day 29 (or second 2,505,600, for those of you that DO habla...) to give AT&T the heave-ho... Stay tuned.
