>As Peter Ekkerman noted, MagicJack can now be be used with just a 
>router but their customer service is still atrocious.

Yes, I knew this and I, in fact, own a first generation Magic Jack. 
It was my first VOIP device. I think I still have three years left on 
my five year subscription. It might still come in handy when I 
travel, however, my experience with MJ is no where near as straight 
forward as NetTalk. My first Magic Jack died about six months in, and 
was a nightmare to replace. There is no phone number or email address 
to contact them. You have to chat and this can go on for an hour 
while they run you though their troubleshooting script. In 18 months 
I only had to call NetTalk once about my number porting... not a 
problem just a question I was unsure of...and I spoke to an American 
who quickly answered my question.

I got my Magic Jack because list owner Bob Wright and I will have 
telephone meetings periodically that can last for a few hours, and on 
a land line this was too expensive. Magic Jack did solve that problem 
but we started experiencing shutdowns at precisely thirty minutes of 
conversation, and then I would have to reconnect. I assume this 
occurs when they have heavy traffic on the MJ network although they 
insisted it wasn't them. But this never happened with NetTalk, and it 
never happened when using a cell phone. Plus my Magic Jack works with 
one phone for each device while NetTalk works with multiple phones 
primarily because NetTalk has it's own power supply.

Actually I use an old external modem with Phone Fax Messaging 
software. I have done this since the early nineties with my Verizon 
land line. There are advantages such as FAX support and being able to 
white, and black list numbers. I never answered my land line 
directly. When I ported my number, closed my land line account and 
used NetTalk as my home phone I was very surprised to find out that 
my old modem land line setup worked with the phone line plugged into 
a splitter, and then one line going to my desk phone, one to the base 
station of a Uniden cordless phone, and one line going to my very old 
Practical Peripherals voice modem!

> >>>BTW it is hardware question.
>Even if I go with Google Voice????

It is fundamentally a networking question ... and that makes it 
PCBUILD, but I can see where this post falls in the grey area, and I 
leave those decisions to the Moderators.

m 

                          PCSOFT's List Owners:
                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
                        Mark Rode<[log in to unmask]>