New Phone Service...

Whew...I am tired of paying my high cable phone bill from Cox Communications...now I am in search of a good VOIP phone - since those seem to be cheaper...but not sure about phone quality...

Well last Thursday I purchased the magicJack online - bought the 5 year extended plan as well - and the total for shipping, tax and everything was around $112...not bad for a phone service that allows for free local and long distance calling...but how is the quality? Is it really free and is it really as easy to use as the infomercial and website and review sites say...yeah - yeah it is.

I got mine in yesterday (Monday April 20, 2009) and opened up the package...connected the magicJack to the computer and all I saw was the drivers loading...no application and don't remember it asking me if I wanted to install the application - I believe everything is kept right there on the mJ usb drive...so that when you remove it and plug it into another computer then all your contacts and everything stay with you...

After it loaded up the drivers, then a screen popped up asking me for some personal information and then asked me for the area code I wanted to select from...I selected our area code but noticed nothing in the prefix code area was close to us...so choose one that best suited the family - one they could call and it would be considered a local call to them...

Anyway, once I did that I connected up the home phone (cordless) and called my wife on her cell...just to see if it worked and it worked find...she could hear me and I could hear her just fine - so I moved out of the same room as her and we continued to talk and guess what - she was still able to hear me just fine and I was able to hear her...alright cool - the first test worked...

So I called my dad - who lives in a completely different state than I (about 45 miles away but still a different state) and he said I sounded like my phone was dying...so I made some adjustments (on the computer app) and called him back and he said I was too loud...I adjusted the microphone on the app and he said I sounded great...So, with a few adjustments here and there, the second test worked out great...

The third test was an incoming call - so I called myself (from my cellphone of course) and wow - caller id worked just fine...but that was as far as I got...15 minutes and I was ready to move onto something else to mess around with...so will have to get back with more information as I continue to test it out for 3 weeks to see if we want it.

Atleast from my short experience with the magicJack (so far) I have found it to be a nifty little device that will soon pay for itself (or find itself on its way back to the company if we decide we don't like it in the next 3 weeks). Should we decide to keep it - then $112 and some change is a helluva savings over what we were paying every month and I am sure we can find something else to spend that money on...