Magic Jack, skype or ???

Thinking about losing the land line or other options. Any recommendations or experience?

I haven't had a land line in 5 years. I also don't use my phone for searching the web so it costs a lot less than the land line did.

I just use my cell phone. I have no need for phone service of any kind in the house.

Voice Pulse better service than any of the others I've tried. Plus it uses standard phone equipment.

It works wonderfully on multiple lines as well. I use it for my office with 8 lines. Cut my office phone bill by over $400 a month.

Uverse seems to have a lot of down time based upon the experiences of several of my friends.

I don't know what's involved / how it works, but from the small demonstration my sister (a very NON-tech person) gave me, I'd vote for Skype.

Her favorite feature, as someone whio is sometimes baffled by the workings of her computer, is the "remote operation" of her computer by her husband. But then, I guess that feature may also be available on other apps.

Skype has the advantage that if all your friends are on Skype, calls are free and you don't need to play with phone numbers. The big advantage of Skype-to-Skype is the massively improved call quality and that's worth it alone IMHO.

If you need a 'real' phone number you have to pay them for that and interaction with the regular phone system will cost you. That said, they have deals where you can call any number in a given country for free for a fixed monthly fee. That's basically what I did for talking to my wife and her family in the US, plus their call rates to other countries are fairly cheap also, at least for the countries I used it for.

The big advantage of Skype IMHO is that no matter where you are, as long as you have Internet access people just call a single phone number and get through to you, even if you're in Outer Mongolia.

IIRC you can't use Skype to call 911 so you'll probably need a cellphone anyway.

Oh, and various smartphones also have Skype clients (both my wife's Crackberry and my iPhone have one) so that's another good way to get cheaper calls if your phone has Wifi.

1stly... I can't recommend VOIP if it is your ONLY phone... (even if the other phone is just a prepay)...

also understand VOIP steals bandwith... broadband is an obvious requirement (although I do recall playing with VOIP back in the 90s on dial up haha)... if you don't have the speeds the voice quality goes down hill quickly... primarily dealing with the upload speed numbers here... if i'm doing a lot of torrents I notice a drop in voice quality...

...i've had magicjack for over a year now... it has some drawbacks... but it's also $30 for a year... computer must be on to work... installs software on your computer, limits calls to 30 min (runs for 30min then kills the call or at least it did... prob still does... i don't talk that long so it doesn't matter to me... sometimes it's a little finicky... for the price i've been very pleased... it works better then 90% of the time (honestly for $30 what do I expect)... it works with standard phone equipment (plug a phone in)... don't need to touch the computer to use... or you can plug a headset into the computer and go that route and use the "soft phone" on the computer

my skype experiance is a bit more limited... i've done computer to computer (free) both just voice and vid... simply plug a headset into the computer and "dial"... i've talked to a number of customers who've used it and been happy (was doing ISP tech support)... again you have to have the computer on to use (unless you buy some extra bits)... it works pretty much just like any other IM chat client (AIM, MSN, YAHOO ect)... super awesome

looks like you pay 2.99 a month for unlimited in the states, or 2.1cents a min... for that price it may be worth trying it for a month if you

and looking there is one BIG thing (well big to some people)... you have no 911... even magicjack has this.

so i'd give sype a try... if you need some help testing computer to computer quality hit me up (can do that free before spending anything)

it's a geeky new world out there... enjoy it :)

I use Skype for my international calls. Skype to Skype is far superior to ANY other call method. Ma Bell sucks on a lot of calls, probably because of problems at the other end, but Skype sounds like I'm calling next door. Most of my calls are on Skype-Out, which is a pay service to regular phones, but price is good and quality OK. For real giggles, talk to a guy with a heavy Scotch brogue on a bad cell phone connection to Cayman. E-mail fixes that.

You don't need any of that Skype to Skype nonsense to get call quality that is indistinguishable from a real phone call with Voice Pulse.

I have had VOIP for years now and don't notice the bandwidth theft. The phone takes up very little bandwidth. When I have trouble with my internet I can still call out and receive calls. So that's not something I'd worry about.

You also can use regular phone equipment and you can cause all calls to roll over to your cell phone at any time. I have it do that automatically when the internet is down so that no calls are missed. If I were to take a trip I'd just take the little box with me if I didn't want it to roll to my cell phone and any place with internet gives me automatic phone service. You can also get phone numbers in whatever area code you want so people can call you without paying a long distance charge.

It has a very cool anti-telemarketer system along with a large compliment of other cool features

Errr, carguy123, I think you're missing the point slightly...

The quality of the Skype to Skype 'nonsense' is considerably better than a regular phone call, even landline to landline.

BoxheadTim wrote: Errr, carguy123, I think you're missing the point slightly... The quality of the Skype to Skype 'nonsense' is considerably better than a regular phone call, even landline to landline.

lol, yeah... Matching land line quality is no significant claim...

Skype is known for transmitting high quality voice, though if its something you are going to go with, do research on its security issues.

I have heard A LOT of complaints over security flaws in skype allowing people to "take over your computer or camera", however I don't know the validity of these, or if they have been fixed and its just people repeating outdated arguments.

Put me on the list of "Just use your cellphone" though. Been doing this for the past few years. I just don't understand the need for a land line these days.

A custom Asterisk box with SIP plus Skype would be the best option, but you need mad l33t computer sk1llz to set it up, and the hardware's not cheap either. A simple home-grade system I'm setting up for someone right now with 5 phones is running him nearly $2kUS in hardware.

I'd like to ditch my landline too, but one issue I'm running into is our security system, which requires phone access. I called the security company and there is a cellular option that could be used, but, once I pay for the hardware and the additional monthly fee, it's damn near what I pay for my traditional landline.

So I called the phone company and the most basic service available (nothing but dial tone) is ~$27/mo, once taxes and fees are added.

I called Cox cable (my current cable and internet provider) because their phone service will work for the purposes of the alarm, but again, it's almost $30/mo all in.

Does anyone know if any of the 'alternative' phone services are compatible with alarm systems that need phone access?

dyintorace wrote: I'd like to ditch my landline too, but one issue I'm running into is our security system, which requires phone access. I called the security company and there is a cellular option that could be used, but, once I pay for the hardware and the additional monthly fee, it's damn near what I pay for my traditional landline. So I called the phone company and the most basic service available (nothing but dial tone) is ~$27/mo, once taxes and fees are added. I called Cox cable (my current cable and internet provider) because their phone service will work for the purposes of the alarm, but again, it's almost $30/mo all in. Does anyone know if any of the 'alternative' phone services are compatible with alarm systems that need phone access?

Asterisk + SIP, again, with an interface card and an FXO module. Regular ol' phone lines can be tied into the system.

dyintorace wrote: Does anyone know if any of the 'alternative' phone services are compatible with alarm systems that need phone access?

i'll put this 1st... i'm not as techy as many guys here... but I did work (untill very recently) for an ISP doing tech support... delt with lots of VOIP systems both ours and 3rd party...

security system will "usually" work with VOIP... but is also usually not supported by the ISP (or whoever you go though)... it gets even worse when you have a 3rd party VOIP service... if voice quality is bad they default to blame the ISP... and the ISP blames the VOIP provider... officaly there is little the ISP will do if you are receiving appropriate bandwidth... and there is little the VOIP provider can do beyond making sure they are using the appropriate/optimal codec.

also you are dealing with outages... every ISP i've ever had (or worked for) has had bad days... and if not outages on the ISP end then an outage with power still kills it (land line works in power outage)... sure you could toss an UPS on there or something... but then thats more to add vs ma bell... so for the securty system (or if you have an older person in the house using one of those life alert systems)... stick to the traditional POS... drop it to the lowest tier level you can... and see what other options are out there...

back to carguy... no VOIP doesn't use much bandwidth... but when you are dealing with crappy broadband it IS noticeable... in fact that's the 1st place you look when someone is having poor voice quality... if you are dealing with a slow "broadband" it happens... i'm sure being at an office you have a quality connection... but some people are stuck with crap suck bottom of the line DSL or even just poor cable service (those where my options at my last residence due to location)... so it's something to be considered before taking the plung and dumping the main line all together... we haven't had a landline for about 5 years now...

and on a side note... if you plan on changing your phone number when going to your next service I highly recommend going though googlevoice.. keep that number with you and you don't need to worry if life changes... does all kinds of nifty stuff... my fav is still that they will email you the transcript of the voicemail to your email... sure other companies have this feature... but when you leave the company you don't get it anymore... one neat idea i recall mentioned on here was setting the GV number as one of fav5/circle whatever plans it is on the phone... you can call your GV number and have it forward your call to whoever you want... makes it so you are calling a free number and not having to worry about min (if thats a concern :)

if all you do is make phone calls... then def give VOIP a try... :)

I've done Skype-to-Phone and Skype-to-Skype over a BGAN satellite modem in the boonie islands off the coast of Sumatera. Seriously, if you think your dial-up is slow, try one of these things. Anyway the quality wasn't exactly brilliant, but it was understandable... Actually Skype does a really good job of scaling the quality to work with how much bandwidth is available rather than just cutting out or getting choppy. I'd give it a good recommendation.

I also use it all the time to call my friends and family in Canada. 1.7 cents per minute for an overseas call.