Thread: MAGICJACK

Originally Posted by JMS

There is such a thing as cordless phones these days Sir.

True, but the real question is why anybody would bother to use anything but their cell phone living in San Diego County? I can't imagine that you could get out of cell range without a 3 hour drive.

Originally Posted by VeeDubb65

True, but the real question is why anybody would bother to use anything but their cell phone living in San Diego County? I can't imagine that you could get out of cell range without a 3 hour drive.

.....The cost

Originally Posted by JMS

.....The cost

That's a valid concern, but I based my comment/question on a couple of assumptions. (possibly very wrong assumptions)

1. You're already paying for high speed internet. (If not, there's no benefit to magic jack)
2. You're getting your internet from the cable company (because if you're using DSL from the phone company, they usually require you to maintain a land line, completely defeating the purpose)
3. Living in San Diego County, you already have a cell phone in the house, probably more than one if you're married.
4. The cell service in San Diego County is very reliable. (my safest assumption)
5. Pricing of cell service is the same in San Diego County, CA as in Polk County, OR. (this is probably where I made my mistake)

Based on those assumptions, and the fact that Sprint offers fully unlimited cell service for $99/month, which is only $10/month more than their mid-range plan, and $30/month more than their entry level plan, it would be roughly the same cost to upgrade to an unlimited cell phone plan as to subscribe to a VOIP service like magicjack or vonage.

If any of my assumptions were incorrect, it may very well be a better deal to go with VOIP.

Originally Posted by VeeDubb65

That's a valid concern, but I based my comment/question on a couple of assumptions. (possibly very wrong assumptions)

1. You're already paying for high speed internet. (If not, there's no benefit to magic jack)
2. You're getting your internet from the cable company (because if you're using DSL from the phone company, they usually require you to maintain a land line, completely defeating the purpose)
3. Living in San Diego County, you already have a cell phone in the house, probably more than one if you're married.
4. The cell service in San Diego County is very reliable. (my safest assumption)
5. Pricing of cell service is the same in San Diego County, CA as in Polk County, OR. (this is probably where I made my mistake)

Based on those assumptions, and the fact that Sprint offers fully unlimited cell service for $99/month, which is only $10/month more than their mid-range plan, and $30/month more than their entry level plan, it would be roughly the same cost to upgrade to an unlimited cell phone plan as to subscribe to a VOIP service like magicjack or vonage.

If any of my assumptions were incorrect, it may very well be a better deal to go with VOIP.

I use my cell phone for my business line as I am always on the road.

I have DSL and a fax line run off of that.

I have a separate household line which is the line I am thinking of replacing with the MAGICJACK.

My wife has a cell phone only for emergencies (300 minutes a month) which I pay 20 a month for.
All together I pay about 190 in phone bills. The MAGICJACK will allow me a savings of 40 to 50 dollars.

OK- yep, I'm the idiot. For some reason thought i read cell phone in your first post. Made an ass out of you and me (as it were).

Originally Posted by JMS

The MAGICJACK will allow me a savings of 40 to 50 dollars.

Well, there's no question that saving about 25% of what you're spending on phone bills is a good thing, but looking at everything you've posted, I can't help but wonder if you could do better yet. (not being argumentative, seriously trying to help a guy out)

The first thing I would get rid of, if you have a computer and DSL, is that fax line. For a one time investment of $100 or less, you could get a scanner or multi-function printer copier scanner if you don't already have one. Since it sounds like you have your own business, I'm guessing you've already got one.

Once you have that, there are services you can subscribe to which would provide you with a local fax number you could use to send and receive faxes, but you would do everything with your computer. (can't think of the name at the moment, but there are several, and I use one at work all the time) The software let's you send a fax to any number, and received faxes are emailed to you as PDF attachments. It's basically the fax equivalent of replacing your home phone line with VOIP, and offers similar savings. It also has two distinct advantages:

1. You would be able to immediately receive a fax from anywhere you can get an internet connection and view a PDF file, which is a HUGE plus if you travel for work.
2. You would also save a lot of money in the long run over a traditional fax machine, as you only have to print the things that you want to print, rather than wasting expensive fax toner on cover sheets.

It sounds like you really do need to maintain a separate home phone line, which is cool, but you've already discovered that magic jack or vonage can do that nicely for a fraction of the cost. If you replace the voice line with VOIP, and the fax line with an internet based faxing service, the only thing tieing you to the phone company is that DSL.

It may be different down south, but up here, you can get cable or fiber optic for about half the cost of DSL, and the service is generally much more reliable, which is important if your home phone is VOIP.

So, cable internet, internet faxing services, magic jack, and leave the cell phones as they are, I suspect you could shave another $40-$50 per month off your telecom bill. Just think how many razors you could buy with that!


In any case, if you can shave $40-$50 off your phone bill with nothing but magicjack, I'd buy one tomorrow.





*Side-note: When I said that magicjack was $5/month cheaper than vonage, I must have been having a micro-stroke. Magicjack is $20/YEAR, vonage is $20-$25/MONTH. So, magicjack is way the heck cheaper.

Oh, I should point out that there is one other minor down-side to using VOIP instead of the phone company.

It may not matter to you at all, but you would have a different prefix.

Example, in my town, there's only two prefixes for the phone company, 503-838-xxxx or 503-606-xxxx. If I got magicjack, I'd have some other prefix besides 838 or 606.

Just like cell phones, it would still be a local number, but people might think it was a cell number if you didn't specify that it was your home number. And of course, your town might have 10 different prefixes, or you might not care anyway. I certainly wouldn't care for a $40-$50/month in savings....

Just an FYI, I hit google for "internet fax service" and randomly clicked on 3 links near the top.

One was 16.95/month unlimited, one was $0.11/minute send only, and another was $10/month for up to 100 pages sent and 200 received. Not sure what you're paying for your fax line, but I suspect it's a lot more than that.

Originally Posted by JMS

My wife has a cell phone only for emergencies (300 minutes a month) which I pay 20 a month for.

Don't you have prepaid cards in the US? You only pay for the minutes you use (you have to 'charge' the account) and you don't pay any monthly fees.
Usually this also means you have no international roaming.

For the user scenario of your wife, this might be a nice way to cut costs.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Don't you have prepaid cards in the US? You only pay for the minutes you use (you have to 'charge' the account) and you don't pay any monthly fees.
Usually this also means you have no international roaming.

For the user scenario of your wife, this might be a nice way to cut costs.

Funny you mention that. My employee who uses magicjack also uses pre-paid cell-phone because she usually only uses ~20 minutes/month.

There's a couple of problems with them in this country. Many of them have minutes that expire, and are a much worse deal than a cheap monthly plan if you're talking more than 40 or so minutes a month. They also run out of minutes in a hurry if you do any amount of text messaging, while you can add unlimited texting to most monthly plans for a very small additional fee, which is a great way to keep down on how many minutes you use.

Also, in some areas (although not where I live) you can get some amazingly cheap monthly plans if you have good credit, or can afford a big deposit, like unlimited plans for $20/month, which basically means that in those areas, the only people who use pre-paid cell phones are drug dealers and people with such horrible credit that nobody will do business with them unless they pay up front.

Of course, if you're going to go whole-hog and try to get your telecom bills as low as possible, they're certainly worth looking into. You may even be able to get one using your wife's current phone.