Adding to all of this techno stuff We have all just bought Magic Jacks..AMAZING. $20 US per year and you get a regular phone number and area code from your home town in the US or Canada. Now anyone can call you and you can call anyone in the US or Canada for FREE..well not quite $20 a year. Magic Jack is the size of 1/2 pack of cigarettes. Magic Jack plugs into a USB port on any computer and a regular home phone plugs into Magic Jack. That is it; you get a dial tone and make your call or the phone rings and you answer..just like home.

Been using one for two years and it works fine. You do need a fast internet connection for it to work well. It can also make calls to anywhere in the world for very reduced international rates. You must purchase time for it to accomplish this. This is done online with your credit card.

I, too, have been using my Magicjack for about a year now. I love it. No more grinding my teeth while put on hold and listening to elevator music. An additional feature Soi10Tom did not mention is that the Magicjack also provides an answer machine which will record voice messages when you either don't answer or it is not plugged in. To retrieve them, you can either open a wav file they send by email or access the voice messages via your Magicjack on the computer.

Where do you get one?

Where do you get one?

Go to http://www.Magicjack.com and order one. Can also be purchased from Best Buy. Best if you order it from the company because it comes with a warranty and they will replace it if it breaks.

Yes, it does work very well. Have used them for over two years and haven't had any problems.

Great for calls to friends or loved ones. Never worry about a long distance charge. Not bad for

$19.99 a year!

you get a regular phone number and area code from your home town in the US or Canada

Is it restricted to the US and Canada? Any other countries?

You can buy 2 Magic Jacks with phone numbers in the same area code (USA) Give one to your friend and you use the other. It is like dialing a local call. So your friend in Pattaya can call you wherever you are and it's basically free. I've used this while traveling in most of Europe, Australia and several other countries without any problems. Check out the Magic Jack website for more info.

I have a friend that uses this often. He loves it and swears by it. I have used both Skype and Vonage for years. I love Skype and use it daily. As for Vonage, I don't use it often but I had a great NYC number that I want to keep and no way to transfer it from Vonage.

 

I have also used Facetime most often recently. It is totally free and the BF has an account so it is easy for him and I to communicate via Facetime.

 

I have not used Magic Jack yet but I will give it a try.