Magic Jack & Linux...???

[Billie Walsh]

> On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 21:26, Larry Shields<larryesu at gmail.com
> <mailto:larryesu at gmail.com>>  wrote:
>
>     *I was wondering if any of you have used the Magic Jack running
>     Linux, since
>     I have not yet bought it...Anyone out there who can answer this question
>     would be helpful...
>
>     Thanks Larry

About three years ago we bought a Magicjack. For whatever reason it 
didn't work well. Call quality just plain stunk. Then about two years 
ago we tried again. Call quality is excellent. No dropped calls. We went 
out and bought another one. Now have two working full time, in Windows 
of course. Tracie just bought a Nettalk stand alone, no computer 
required, and loves it.

I have to wonder how many bad impressions are caused by the connection 
to the net rather than the device itself. Connection speed and system 
load are very critical with this sort of device. Our first attempt with 
the Magicjack we just plain didn't have enough bandwidth to support it.

I know our old ISP said that most of the VOIP devices really loaded down 
the system, but we did a test with him of the Magicjack and it used very 
little bandwidth. He had forbidden any of his customers from using VOIP 
devices as part of the contract, but he did endorse Magicjack after our 
test.

Unless you just have to have something that connects to a computer, like 
traveling with a laptop and wanting to take your phone along, I would 
recommend a stand alone device.

As another alternative. We have a Sprint Card and a Linksys router that 
we travel with. It's a special router that the card plugs directly into 
the router. The router has four plug in ports and is also wireless. 
During a major power outage here at home we ran five computers off it 
for a week with no issues. When traveling we could take along our 
Nettalk box and plug directly into the router. The card/router 
combi8nation is much better than one of those mobile wifi devices. A bit 
bigger and bulkier but..........

-- 

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner. 
Liberty is a well-armed lamb."     - Benjamin Franklin -

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