VoIP - Which One?
 

I'm ready to go VoIP. I'd like to know your recommendations please. And I have a few related questions. Such as...if I went with Ooma for example, do I need to get handsets, etc. to make the system work? If you recommend a certain system, I'd like to know what you consider basic required equipment, startup costs, and monthly costs...and of course any other relevant info I may not even be considering.

Thanks.

I have used Magic Jack since March. No interruptions. No dropped calls. Voice is crystal clear both sending and receiving. I think it was $49.00 for first yr. Less in year two. Used in both the Villages and in pittsburgh. Just plug into wall outlet (power) and the back of your router. Used existing phones. 3 auxiliary phones all work great. Their customer support weak. Texting only but you should have no problems setting it up. Takes 5-10 days to port an existing phone number over to MJ. Mine took 4 days. Think you will be happy with it.

We use Magic Jack in Florida as well as in Canada (we have a modem each place). We've been using it for years and years. Much less expensive than Vonage.

we went Ooma. We use all of the same digital wireless phones that we had before Ooma.

Now into year 2 and not a single complaint.....clear as a bell....nice to be able to call anywhere in the USA with no LD charges.

We pay $2.89 per month....savings of over $35 per month!!!!

You do need to have a home wifi set up/router.

We use Magic Jack. We've had it since they started in 2007. Then you had to have a computer running. Since 2011 they have come out with a jack that plugs into your router, and no computer needs to be running.

We've never had a dropped call or message not received, but we use Comcast internet, which is very reliable. I am not worried about not having phone service if the internet goes out, because we have smart phones that use satelite and which can be charged up on the cars' batteries.

After the yearly fee (as noted above), there are no other fees/bills. Local and long distance calls in the US are free.

You do have to purchase a phone to go with it. We have a Panasonic KX-TG6841, recommended on TOTV a while back. It is a base phone with two wireless "satelite" phones. I wish I could spell sattelite. Satellite?

We have a Magic Jack but only use it for my wife to call her family in The Philippines. We hardly ever use it anymore since she uses Facebook video chat or Skype now.

I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would want a permanent landline these days. I got rid of mine years ago. We have two cell phones.

We have used Magic Jack for years. Works fine and it's cheap!

Agree with everything but the part about having to buy a new phone. Simply use the existing digital phone you have now. We did and it works fine.

We have had Ooma for for over 6 years with no issues. About a dozen of our friends and family have it also. Pug any wireless phone into the Ooma box and you are good to go. You bill is only what the taxes are in your area $3 to $5 a month. One more thing the Ooma box is portable so you can plug it into any wifi network and your # goes with the box. I can't believe the cable companies charge $30+ a month for the same thing!

Thanks for all the replies...exactly the info I needed. After my research I'm not surprised that you are all satisfied with both Magic Jack and Ooma. It appears they're both very good.

I think I would satisfied with either. Since Magic Jack costs just a bit less, I'm going to give it a try. :)

Another vote for OOMA. Had it going on 4 years without issue. They do have a Premium service which has some interesting features but certainly not necessary for everyday use.

Switched from Magic Jack to Ooma and happy
 

Recently switched from Magic Jack to Ooma and very happy with Ooma. My MJ served me well over many years but I had issues with it that Customer Service couldn't resolve. Issues were: 1 would often drop the call after about 20 to 25 minutes 2. When we got a call at times we couldn't hear the other person or the other person couldn't hear us and had to have them call us back and then it would work. We spent hours and hours on the phone with MJ technical support changing settings and retrying and nothing resolved the issues over months. I take the MJ back and forth to NY with me and in both states I had the same issues. Finally got sick of it and switched to Ooma and it works great. Ooma cost a small bit more but service seems a lot better. BTW I had a J Plus.

I use my laptops mic and speaker and google voice. To see if this works for you watch this. Everything is free.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOZU7BOeQ58

Watch the rest of microsoft's google voice youtubes.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfB...5uXSQGIC50xPpw

And than watch this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFFx8F7Fm9M

good luck

We too use Ooma and in 4 years of use it works perfectly. No dropped calls, clear as can be. We have the basic service, not the premium. You can't beat the price.

Some of us want land lines 'cause we can't hear well on the little cell phones, and some of us don't always get a good signal where we live.

We want to change from Comcast internet + phone which works fine but is expensive since their promotional rate ended. We would like to keep our 7-year old phone number when we change to a new provider. The trouble is (and I suppose this is a new one in the WACKY world of Comcast), Comcast doesn't recognize the phone number we have, so we can't get it ported! They think our number is 63*-****, but it really is 75*-****. When I dial 63*-****, we get a message that it is not in service.

I've installed the Magic Jack. Simple enough and there appears to be only one issue. Could be a deal breaker if not improved...

Voice volumes on the other end are low. From what we're told, we sound find to others, but we have a bit of difficulty hearing those we call or who call us. The clarity seems okay, but the volume is simply too low. Have any of you Magic Jack users experienced this? Do you think it might improve after the "port is completed"? (See the following...)

Here are a couple technical items listed in an email from Magic Jack.
-------------------------
* YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE INCOMING CALLS UNTIL THE PORT IS COMPLETED (5-10 Business Days). Until the port is completed, you will only be able to use your magicJack to make outbound calls.
* Transferring a number may take up to 10 business days to complete.
Until the port is completed, your phone number will remain with your current phone service.
--------------------------

The first item I can live with if the sound improves. But I'm fully prepared to part ways with MJ and give Ooma a try if necessary. On other hand, if the voice volume improves, I'm okay with MJ.

What do you think?

I know people who've Has been using MJ for years. I've never seen anyone attempt to use it to fax, Curious. Anyone Try? C.D.

Is there a way to setup MJ on your computer? Microphone and speaker setup? CD

I used it for several years strictly as a fax line. It worked ok, not well, but ok. Cheaper than adding a new land line.

I've not tried fax on MJ, but I've tried it on Ooma and it seemed to work ok, although there's a special code they recommend you add to your dialing string to choose a codec that's somewhat more amenable to fax traffic (*99 if I recall correctly). I also tried to get it working on ViaTalk and had no luck whatsoever. Fax protocols have very tight timing requirements and do not deal with delayed (or dropped) packets well at all, so almost any Internet implementation of fax is going to be a hit or miss situation as delayed and dropped packets are pretty much the norm for the TCP/IP protocol (although TCP/IP has built-in recovery mechanisms so you almost never notice it, but fax does not).
--
bc

We have used Ooma for several years and love it's many features. I can't speak to Magic Jack's capabilities but the Pros & cons we love about Ooma include...

PROS
** Can be used with Ooma wireless handsets or any standard telephone sets. To use the latter, with or without Ooma sets, disconnect your residence phone service from Ma Bell and then plug a phone cord from the Ooma control unit into any phone jack in your home and Ooma will then ring and allow the use of standard phones as if they were plugged into the Ma Bell system.
** Voice Messaging is standard and includes full answering machine functionality.
** The base station controller speaker allows you to screen callers, so you can hear any message they are leaving and decide to pick up the call, or not.
** The Ooma handsets are feature rich with caller ID, Call Directory, redial, Do Not Disturb feature to shut off ringer, and speaker phone.
** Ooma has Smart Phone Apps that let you view your call logs from anywhere to see who has called recently. The Apps also allow you to make calls from your Smart Phone (eg, iPhone, Android) as "Data" calls that do not use your phone "minutes" but use your data plan instead.
** All calls are free, and calls to other Ooma phones anywhere in the world are free. The only recurring costs are state and federal taxes levied on phone services. These fees amount to just $2-3 per month.

That is all included in the FREE (Basic) Plan. If you pay $10/mo for the Premier Plan then the following features are included (which I really love!)...

** Voice Messages are recorded and emailed to you immediately as MP3 files, so you can be immediately aware of messages and listen to them on your smart phone anywhere in the world.
** You can Block any phone number that calls you (such as telemarketers) so you are not bothered anymore.
** You can Block any calls with a caller ID of "Anonymous"
** You can automatically block any callers that are on the "Community Blacklist" where multiple Ooma Users have identified the caller as "Spam."
** You can instantly forward your calls (using your myOoma web portal) to another phone. (Nice when away from home even for just a few hours and you want to get your calls.)
** You get a 2nd phone line free, which rings if you are already on the phone on Line 1. You can also make the ring different on this 2nd line, so if you moved for instance, and want to keep your old number but have a new primary number in your new area code, then your old number can be assigned to line 2 with a unique ring so you can identify "back home" callers from your new local friends.

CONS
** The following is probably true of Magic Jack and any other VOIP phone too, but all of these phones have to convert a "standard" phone call into a digital data stream to send over the internet. The process of doing this conversion requires compromises between fidelity and data bandwidth. In an effort to keep data rate bandwidth low, these conversions tend to make voices "muffled" sounding as the high frequencies are not included. Thus sometimes a caller sounds like they have a washcloth over their phone, and can be hard to understand. On the other hand all Ooma to Ooma connections are very high fidelity and sound wonderful. So if you have hearing issues, you may want to buy family members an Ooma phone to save them money and give you nice crisp voices to listen to. [:-)}

In short, we have found the Ooma to be a pretty remarkable solution, that not only saves money but makes our lives easier.

[:-)}

Magic Jack is CHEAP and works very well. We used Vonage for a several years and it was great, but still had a monthly charge. Magic Jack is a no brainer. Purchase the device, pay the small fee to "import" your land line phone number, then a very low yearly fee.

We used Magic Jack for 5 yrs and found it very reliable. Never had a problem.

But after moving here, we dropped Magic Jack. We decided we didn't need a "home phone". Our cell phones are great for our needs and less sales, political, spam calls to be subjected to.

Magic Jack user for over 8 years. Very easy to use and inexpensive to own.