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MagicJack Fastest Growing Phone Company?
That's what the AP is saying.
MagicJack is a USB device that connects a normal phone to your PC.
According to GigaOM, the company uses a national CLEC to route all calls over the internet to a local number. The costs are the price of a local call for every call you make.
The CLEC is YMAX .
I've been using two of these at home: one for my own use and one for the home office. The service is very cheap: $50 for the first year, which is $30 for the device and $20 for the service plus $7 shipping and handling.
There are quirks.
I find I cannot do anything else on the PC while using a MagicJack. Computer activity of any kind causes noise on the line. Luckily, I have a work PC and home PC so, for work, I run the business calls on my home PC and take notes on the work PC. When I want to make personal calls, however, I have to not use the PC for anything else.
I have not seen spyware like behavior, but the software installs on your PC like spyware (see the google search for "uninstall magicjack").
Quality is not always great.
There's also the VoIP issue. Calls are not full duplex. If I'm talking, the system appears to not transmit anything the other person's saying, and if the other person's talking, it seems to not transmit what I'm saying.
But call savings have been enormous for me, so far, and for Jupitermedia.
People are right to ask whether the company can keep prices this low over the long term. Nevertheless, the price of residential voice is headed toward zero, which is why independent ISPs are focusing on business customers.
Update:
I received the following reply on the ISP-Wireless list:
magicjack is a simply an extreme example of a company selling service below cost to drive subscriber base, and therefor their stock value. We operate over 200 VoIP brands. I have a solid understanding of the real costs to provide PSTN termination and origination in the US. Unless Magicjack really is...magic, they are losing money on every customer. Remember Sunrocket? Woo hoo! Unlimited calling for $99 a year!. Fastest growing phone company in the US! Going to kill vonage and packet8 and everyone else and drive the cost down to zero. Well, now they are gone, because once the bean counters and the idiot investors figure out that you are NEVER going to make any money, they pull the plug. Only hope MJ has is that ebay will purchase them for $5 Billion or so.
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