Re: Linux Magic Jack?

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Author: mike havens
Date:  
To: Main PLUG discussion list
Subject: Re: Linux Magic Jack?
How do you do free calling with google voice? It seems it is just a
forwarding service.

On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 8:39 PM, James Finstrom <
> wrote:

> In a time where most homes have no land line ane 5 cell phones voip
> can be verry useful. I personaly haven't had a real phone line in
> years. I wouldn't use the magic jack personally but I have about $2000
> worth of various voip gear in my house. I also do verry little
> outbound calling. I have a 2 free did's that terminate in to my
> system. I have hacks and scripts that allow me to do mosof my outbound
> calling free as well. I just got a google voice account which allows
> me to do free calling as well this is all cheaper than the magic jack
> service. I think its a neat option for the non technical. My father in
> law is as bad as it gets with computers and I didn't get asked at all
> to help him install it. If you are even mildly more technical there is
> no reason to pay for anything phone related.
>
> On 7/12/09, Lisa Kachold <> wrote:
> > On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 2:34 PM, mike Enriquez<> wrote:
> >> I saw a demo of Magic Jack which a USB thumb drive like device that
> >> lets you plug in a telephone jack and make all your phone calls via the
> >> internet.It claims to work only on windows.
> >> They claim that the annual fee is $20.00. Does anyone on the list know
> >> if this is available on Linux or something else exist that is similar.
> >> Boy, I like the price of $20.00 per year to make all my phone calls.
> >> Thanks
> >> Mike Enriquez
> >>
> >>
> >>
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> >>
> > Hello Mike!
> >
> > The utilization issues for all VOIP, IAX systems replacing land line
> > phones include networking complexity, security and E-911 issues,
> > wherein emergency services can immediately verify your address. I
> > wrote the PHP/SQL extension to the Affinity Voip Telecom SER switch
> > for their E-911 registration process so I have a good idea that most
> > people are not bothering to register their VOIP service; E911 is a
> > federal VOIP requirement at the provider level, however must be
> > maintained by the user at the time of service registration.
> >
> > The network issues with all VOIP, IAX2 include NAT traversal which can
> > add more than a little bit of instability during setup and when the
> > network chances or is reset.
> >
> > I am curious as to why anyone would even sanely consider buying a USB
> > "device", when you can easily use softphones like Ekiga (with a PSTN
> > VOIP trunk from axvoice.com $9.99 a month for instance) or Skype
> > ($30.00 unlimited a year)?
> > Skype allows you to skype2twitter; your incoming calls can be
> > forwarded and recorded, various other cool voice analysis plugins are
> > available, etc.
> >
> > https://extras.skype.com/
> >
> http://www.asteriskvoipnews.com/skype/5_most_useful_plugins_for_skype.html
> >
> > There's an article/review that mirrors my sentiment exactly saying,
> > quote: "there's a whiff of sleaze about it all".
> >
> http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2009/03/12/magicjack_far_from_enchanting/
> >
> > Having built (and used home based and professional solutions) Trixbox,
> > SER, and Asterisk for AffinityVoip, GST Telecommunications,
> > Skymall.com and maintained intelligent dialers, programmed and
> > administered a Stromberg Carlson DCO, I am fairly well versed in VOIP
> > and I just have to ask "Why MagicJack"? and "Where's the Magic"?
> >
> > Why have essentially a client running on a USB key? ...scratch
> > head... When you can have it on your computer?
> > There are a great many hardware based solutions also around $30.00
> > (which is what the USB client will cost you after you pay for your
> > $30.00 a year throughput fees):
> >
> > Grandstream ATA's:
> > http://www.grandstream.com/products/ht_series/ht503/ht503.html
> > http://www.grandstream.com/products/ht_series/ht486/ht486.html
> > (axvoice.com ships one of these with signup)
> >
> >
> > Of course, in a disaster situation, where power goes out, your client
> > will not work, unless you have your phone tethered to your battery
> > laptop running your client. And it's certainly a great deal easier
> > to just have a client, since USB devices are not many on most
> > notebooks and it's not exactly the best time to be troubleshooting
> > UDP/NAT Stun traversal settings, during a disaster?
> >
> > (In the old days with our digital PSTN POTS lines with 20 feet
> > "wireless answering machine phones", we had to get a plain butt-set to
> > make calls during power failure, but at least they still worked
> > usually.) Hardware based VOIP phones, don't!
> >
> > --
> > http://linuxgazette.net/164/kachold.html
> > (623)239-3392 Skype: obn0sis
> > (503)754-4452 www.obnosis.com
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> >
>
>
> --
> James Finstrom
> Rhino Equipment Corp.
> http://rhinoequipment.com ~ http://postug.com
> Phone: 1-877-RHINO-T1 ~ FAX: +1 (480) 961-1826
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/rhinoequipment
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--
:-)~MIKE~(-:
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