VoIP - Vonage Vs Magic Jack Vs ???

In My Humble Opinion
1

I need a landline for various reasons but I’m getting pretty sick of how much I’m paying for it. So I’m looking at VoIP and it seems there are a few possibilities.
Right now I’m leaning towards Magic Jack (good price, call quality seems good, conference call number is nice) but I’d like to hear any opinions/experiences you all have.

So who should be my new VoIP provider?

2

Ooma.

I use it, love it, and recommend it to everyone.
I can’t speak for any other system, though.

3

In my job I have called many MagicJack numbers where the person has cancelled their service. The message suggests that you could have this MagicJack number, but the audio is so thick with random pops and dropouts that I feel disinclined to use the product.

4

Ooma - Hmm…
Going to look now…

5

Ooma is a great choice if you are not a computer person. It has excellent, stand-alone hardware. It’s what I recommend for non-geeks.

I am currently using a ObiHai 110. I had been using it with Google Voice and loved it, but Google shut down the features that gave me free long distance calling. Since then, I use it with Vestalink. I paid $89 for a full year’s service with local calling and unlimited nationwide long distance. The have cheaper packages if you don’t spend hours on the phone every night.

You can get used Obi devices very cheap on eBay from others who formerly used Google Voice.

6

I have used Magic Jack for two years. No complaints and the price is right.

7

I’ve been using MagicJack for over five years – no complaints.

8

Basically 4 groups of VOIP choices:

  1. MagicJack/NetTalk (maybe some others) - very cheap, sometimes the service is iffy - make their money when people call you, they exploit loopholes in the telecommunications laws that let “rural” carriers charge more. Basically the same business model as the “free” conference call providers
  2. Vonage/Ooma/many others - standalone VOIP providers that provide the hardware for calling as well as the actual service, and they make their money by charging you, generally a flat rate per month
  3. Comcast/Charter/whatever - VOIP providers associated with your internet, basically identical to 2) except that you can bundle it together with your internet/phone
  4. Bring your own device - buy your own an ObiHai, Cisco device, or just install a program on your phone or computer, then go out and find a “SIP” provider to actually give you the phone number/calling ability. There are an absolutely huge number of these SIP providers (i personally use voip.ms) - billing can be unlimited minutes for a monthly charge, or per minute. The advantage here is that if you don’t use very many minutes you can get quite inexpensive doing it yourself - on the order of 2.95/mo to have a phone number and .01/min for calls if you want. Or you can find lots of unlimited minutes for $15-20/mo type providers as well.
9

Something I’ve heard, and I have no idea how true it is, is that when you use the VoIP service through Comcast/Charter/AT&T the company can actually prioritize the network traffic for your calls over any other activity going on with that connection. I know very little about modern networking, but I think this would probably be through the hardware configuration of the devices they setup in your house for you (so may not apply depending on how you set it up.)

FWIW we use a VoIP service marketed to small business at work that’s like $60/mo for three lines and the call quality is fine, so I’m not sure if that prioritization by the telco matters.

10

I use Phone Power. It’s $100/yr (8.33/mo). It’s been pretty reliable for me. You get a standalone-device like Vonage, so no computer needed.

11

Vonage seems to deliver a few more features, a little more reliability and a generally more professional system. I particularly like receiving voicemails via email, in both .WAV and STT formats. No problems with two installations in several years.

12

Like jacobsta, I use voip.ms. They offer a very reasonable prepaid service that suits my calling habits–which is to say, almost never making calls–quite well. You’ll need a phone adapter to connect to your router, available for around $30, and you just plug any regular landline phone into that.

A random feature of the service I particularly like is that if someone leaves you a voicemail, voip.ms emails it to you as an audio file.

13

There’s still Skype. Totally free, if you’re calling other Skype users (and have Internet access, of course). And, in my experience, it works pretty well all the time, and that includes video calling.

We use it all the time so the grandparents (in another country) can see their grandkid.

For a fee, you can call land lines or mobile phones, or receive a call from a land line or mobile phone.

14

You can compare all of these VOIP devices through a tool that I found on a buisnes article. Scroll down to the bottom of the article and there is a tool that lets you put the country you are in and it will give you the most inexpensive brand that fits best for you.

http://www.business2community.com/communications/pick-phone-seal-deal-01015484