Magic jack phone

S

sunshine

Guest
After 3 weeks in RP and having my home phone transferred to my cell I received a $345 phone bill!!

Not many personal calls but a few sales calls.

I have ATT and know to turn off roaming and other settings but this one was the highest yet.

Someome told me about Magic Jack, the newer one, no need to connect to your computer. I thought I read there are charges for international calls. The purpose for this is to lessen my phone bill while in RP a few times a year.

Any advice, info or just plain help!

:sunny:
 
Roberto

Roberto

Guest
I had a Magic Jack ( the earlier one requiring plugged into a computer) and was very happy with it. You select a phone number in whatever area code in the US you want. Calls to anywhere in the US and some other countries are at no additional charge. The magic jack can be used anywhere there is internet service. When you call someone you will be calling from the number you got when you signed up and callers will use that number also. While you do not need a computer you do need wireless internet service. Easy to do, get a local phone from Tel Mex with internet service, about $40 a month. There is another completely wireless way to get internet and GV can fill you in (unless he's in jail again) on that as he got it recently. He buys time as he needs it with no monthly bills. If you are not here a lot that may be a more economical way to go, no regular monthly bill.

Should you go with Magic Jack one issue I had was poor quality reception when I was on the internet and downloading something at the same time as getting or making a call. Solution was to get off the internet before making a call, quality was excellent. BTW you can get two levels of internet bandwidth, I had the smaller and cheaper one and it worked fine.
 
T

Terry C

Guest
The new service requires a phone jack to use. The computer based one you pick your own phone # like 623-xxx-xxxx and you call over the internet. People call your MJ phone #. No fees. The only cost is $30.00 or so for the jack and 1 year service, then $19.95 a year after that. I have it in Encanto and it works well unless there is a lot of band witdth traffic.

It plugs in the usb port and away you go. You would need to purchase a phone too.
 
Roberto

Roberto

Guest
" The new service requires a phone jack to use'

Internet is not required for the new Magicv Jack?
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T

Terry C

Guest
Yes, it requires a phone jack for the MJ PLUS. No Internet needed for the MJ PLUS. You can still buy the computer based one.
 
Jim

Jim

Guest
I have had the same Magic Jack for over 5 years and am very happy with it. I think that they just lowered the price to $69 for 5 years of service. I haven't seen the new one that you guys are talking about but the one that I have works fine. I just leave my computer on and it is just like having a US phone at my house in Mexico. It is also nice that they email voicemails so that I can check them from anywhere with an internet connection.
 
Ladyjeeper

Ladyjeeper

Sonoran Goddess
Staff member
We use a magic jack phone plugged into the computer at PDO. It usually works just fine but sometimes reception is bad. This last weekend, the internet service was spotty at PDO so we had nothing, no phone, no internet. Jerry pays like 19 bucks a year and as much as we are there, it is well worth it.
 
Ladyjeeper

Ladyjeeper

Sonoran Goddess
Staff member
The park supplies it. It's wireless so Jerry brings his laptop and we plug the phone and the magic jack thingee in......
 
K

Kea

Guest
I like to compare Magic Jack service to cell phone service. Sometimes it's good, sometimes not. For MJ it depends on how good your internet connection is; for cell phones, it depends on your proximity to cell towers. I have not used the new Magic Jack plus, because we bought 5 years of service a few years ago & it won't transfer. Another option with them is the MJ app for a smart phone, iPod or iPad. You get a US phone # and service is free. It works anywhere you have internet service.

We pay 372 pesos per month for TelMex phone & internet. They even provided a DSL modem / router combo unit.

I found this website great for answering any and all Magic Jack questions. (It's a 3rd party blog.):

http://www.magicjacksupport.com/
 
mondone

mondone

Whitecaps
Terry C said:
Yes, it requires a phone jack for the MJ PLUS. No Internet needed for the MJ PLUS. You can still buy the computer based one.
Click to expand...
You still need internet service for the MJ Plus to work. Benefit is it does NOT need to be connected to a computer, just connected directly to your ISP connection.
 
rockyptjoe

rockyptjoe

Guest
From the description on the website, you need to be connected to a modem (dsl/etc.) or a router.....wifi won't work since you aren't connected to your computer. I don't know if the Magic Jack Plus is able to be connected to your computer to be "backward compatible".

The only problems I had with the original Magic Jack was when you had the internet signal (wifi) cycling in terms of strength (such as at PDO sometimes)...it appeared that I had 4-5 bars on my wifi signal...but there was a significant lag or echo on the conversation. When the wifi signal was steady, no problems! It was better than using Skype (this is about 2 years ago).
 
GV Jack

GV Jack

Snorin God
Roberto wrote: There is another completely wireless way to get internet and GV can fill you in (unless he's in jail again) on that as he got it recently. He buys time as he needs it with no monthly bills. If you are not here a lot that may be a more economical way to go, no regular monthly bill. FYI Roberto, they let me out on work release. I lied about my age.

Hi Sunshine. GV Jack here and I don't know Jack about Magic Jack. There was a time my wife used to call me that but...Oh Well.

I am a once in a while visitor to RP and wanted to find a way to get the internet. Telcel sells a product called Telcel Amigo USB Modem. It works like a flash drive, in that you plug it in and it takes off.
It costs around $55.00 and that includes 30 days and 3Gig service. After that you pay as you go. 3Gig runs about 499.00 pesos and is good for a month. You can also buy in lower daily & MB increments.
I usually rent a place in Section 5 in Las Conchas, down the hill on the water. The Telcel tower is not far from there and I get two to three bars there.

The first time I used it was in August and it worked great. A few weeks ago, I was there and it worked but it would lose the signal once in a while. The speed is fairly steady. Not as fast as Cox Cable, but a lot faster than
dial up.

As far as recharging goes, you can go to the Telcel place and have them recharge it or you can do it on line, in Spanish. There is a US company that has a recharging process for Telcell pay as you go phones and is saying they will have the same for data, internet, late this year or early next year. If reasonable I will use them because of the language factor. By the way the folks at Telcel in town were very helpful and the man i worked with spoke very good English.

How you couple that with Magic Jack is beyond me but the rest on here I'm sure can help you.

Good Luck. Feel free to PM me if you need any further info.

PS: Web site of company I mentioned before: http://www.trustvesta.com/mobile.aspx
 
R

reportjones

Guest
I searched for the Magic Jack app on my iPhon e and couldnt find it. Can you tell us more about it so I can find it?

wildtoucan said:
The free magic jack app for the iphone is great and for some reason the quality is a lot clearer.
Click to expand...
 
G

gup

Guest
WARNING-------If you let the one year subscription expire, you have to buy another one @$39.95. I thought I would just renew one yr. at a
time, but it was after the one yr. anniversary date...If you look in the fine disclaimer print, you will see the disclaimer.

Would highly recommend the 5 yr.plan @ $69.

Gup
 
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