We have a farm for a second home and are looking into inexpensive options for a phone. Do any of you use VOIP via your Internet connection? Someone had recommended Magicjack and I am just beginning to read up on things.
We have a farm for a second home and are looking into inexpensive options for a phone. Do any of you use VOIP via your Internet connection? Someone had recommended Magicjack and I am just beginning to read up on things.
Have used VOIP at home for years. I work from home for a large corp and I use their VOIP system for all calls from my home (business and personal). Its as reliable as your internet service, so of course if your service is poor, your VOIP experience may reflect that.
Call quality is very good and very often far better than the land line we used to have. I also use the same VOIP service on my mobile phone so calls anywhere in the world over wifi are essentially free as they don't use my call plan. I have no experience with MagicJack. There are a lot of service providers out there so would shop around and read as many user reviews as possible before deciding.
MY cell uses Voip I use Republic Wireless which makes all my calls over the wifi in my house or anywhere that has wifi if no wifi is available then it works just like a regular cell phone, I pay $10 a month for unlimited Cell and text over cell towers and unlimited everything over wifi. doesn't get any cheaper thenthat
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We've had Basic Talk for about 2 years and have been nothing but pleased.
Managed to avoid it for years, but the local phone company finally forced everyone off copper, and on to VOIP.
Annoyed at the change, mislike the change in the billing and seriously put-off by 911 service being dependent on electrical power or a charged battery.
If they’d offered a reasonably extravagantly priced option to keep copper, I would’ve.
I've used Vonage for years with my business. Two lines - one a voice line and the other optimized for fax. I have both lines plugged into a Panasonic KX-TD816 PBX here. Never a problem as long as your internet connection remains up (except for a minor flood that took out my adapter - it doesn't work under water). You buy the adapter and the service is about $25/month for home use.
MagicJack has been in our house for at least 6 years - more I think. Been happy enough. Few glitches - mostly in the old days. Using MJ Plus now and so not tied into the computer being on. Love it. Customer service is OK in the event you need help. Can get on line to chat easier than get a call through and the help is actually helpful. Only done that twice in the entire time.
"... for when we become in heart completely poor, we at once are the treasurers & disbursers of enormous riches."
WQJudge
Used VOIP at home and work now for years. The Verizon FIOS VOIP at home seems bulletproof and provides battery backup so you don't lose phones when the power goes out. I'm not sure they even offer copper wire POTS in our area any more.
Very happy Ooma user checking in!
We've had Ooma for two and a half years now.
We had all sorts of dropped calls and horrible connections with tons of static the first year.
Then our ancient cordless phone's battery died and we replaced it.
Our problems went away with the old phone.
I read up on it & it seems to be a common problem with older phones.
By older, I mean like 25 plus years old.
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." - John Lennon
All the land lines at SCM Group are VOIP. Not sure the carrier but no issues I have ever had in talking to folks there. As others have mentioned, if the internet goes down, so does your phone line. That has happened a few times.
Erik
Ex-SCM and Felder rep
We switched over to VOIP (bundled through Charter Cable) about 2 years ago and have been pleased with it for the most part because it is a LOT cheaper than landline ($30 vs $70). Audio is better and we are not paying extra for domestic long distance. Only problem with it is as others have already mentioned - lose cable or power and you are without a phone. Makes it tough to get a hold of the power company to report an outage!
Steve
“You never know what you got til it's gone!”
Please don’t let that happen!
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Put your cable modem and phone on a UPS, and it should work in power outages.
Been using VOIP for over 10 years here.
Gerry
JointCAM
Yes, it works while on battery backup --- Verizon provided a built-in battery, and has replaced it once for free, so now, I need to replace it the next time. What is the environmental cost of every home in the U.S. having an additional battery in it, which needs to be replaced / recycled? I'd rather have copper which doesn't require on-going overview on my part.
Last time I was at the battery shop they soaked me for ~$5.00 to recycle all of our old alkalines (found out that the local Radio Shack at the mall, while they claimed to be accepting batteries for recycling were actually pitching them --- glad that location is gone, and don't miss the others so much 'cause of it).
Lets say I kill my regular phone service and switch to VOIP. Do I / Can I still retain my old phone number if i want to?
When Verizon switched us over, our phone # stayed the same --- there was just a brief window where they closed the account, discontinued the service, then reinstated it.