I thought Vonage was awesome, but I recently bought a "Magic Jack" and it's even better. Make free phone calls any where at any time in the U.S. and Canada for the price of the "jack" (plugs into a PC USB port and costs about 40-60 bucks depending if you catch it on sale) and a $20.00 per year fee and that's it. I've tested it and so far it works great.

__________________
Adam Leavelle
Westminster OPC
Roaring Spring Pa.

http://www.myspace.com/aleavelle
"Speak wisdom to a fool and he'll think you have no sense at all"

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

Does Vonage offer internet access?

__________________
Ryan Barnhart - Pastor of OGBC
Husband to a beautiful wife, Father to two beautiful girls
"But by the grace of God I am what I am." I Corinthians 15:10

"I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms. And in the Great Day my Resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer." - John Paton

I've had magicjack for a year. Now it is about time to renew, and they have an offer of 4 years for 59.95. It has been high quality since I started the service. One usually cannot tell the difference between a regular line and magicjack voip.

CT

__________________
Hermonta Godwin
Christ The King PCA
Raleigh, NC

Never mind. I just went to their site and read about it. I never even knew how it worked till now. I always just thought they were a regular phone service provider.

__________________
Ryan Barnhart - Pastor of OGBC
Husband to a beautiful wife, Father to two beautiful girls
"But by the grace of God I am what I am." I Corinthians 15:10

"I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms. And in the Great Day my Resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer." - John Paton

I use my cell phone exclusively. I never thought a land line would be obsolete but it is for me.

__________________
Bill Brown
Elder
Grace Baptist Church
Anne Arundel County, Maryland

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

Visit the Eggus Blog

From what I am reading, it looks like there are going to be major changes in the way a large group of Americans do phone calls in the next 12 months.

My friend did away with his home phone (and uses only a cell phone).
Magic Jack.
computer to computer calling.
Wi-fi phone calling.

The deregulation of the telephone companies is now hitting a broad sector of the American public for the first time and they are realizing now they can leave the (former) monopoly phone companies.

This is a benefit here of free capital markets- in this sector, costs are going way down!

__________________
Scott
PCA
North Carolina

Soli Deo Gloria

Can anyone tell me...

Is there any reason to not completely stop traditional phone land-line service?


911 calls
international calls
poor quality sound
power outage effects
bankruptcy of provider

Any reason at all?


Thanks.

__________________
Scott
PCA
North Carolina

Soli Deo Gloria

Well, my ISP is through my local phone company.

__________________
Ryan Barnhart - Pastor of OGBC
Husband to a beautiful wife, Father to two beautiful girls
"But by the grace of God I am what I am." I Corinthians 15:10

"I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms. And in the Great Day my Resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer." - John Paton

Skype's home phone service is nice and very cheap. A lady in my church uses it as her only phone.

__________________
Dan Pemberton
Vacaville, CA

Member, First Baptist Church San Luis Obispo
Formerly ABUSA (We left, so I guess that makes us American Baptists Unleashed!)

Thanks for this useful advice Adam.

Does anyone use their computer for all telephone conversations? I want to drop my cell service ($70/month), have all my phone calls go to/through my computer, and have an answering machine program on my computer.

At $20 plus equipment, seems logical to me. Anybody doing this?

__________________
Bryan Wiley
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Reformed Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky

I haven't had a land line in more than 4 years. I can barely remember what it was like. Cellphone is all I have, although I use Skype from time to time.

__________________
R.Vic Bottomly
Providence Reformed Baptist Church, Tacoma, WA

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

A downside to Magic Jack that I see is that it is "tethered" (after a sort) to the PC and the PC must always be on. With Vonage, I can plug it into my phone jack and get Vonage throughout the whole house. That is very convenient with multiple phones and multiple people. Magic Jack looks good, but not practical for a two story house with 5-6 people.

__________________
Fredrick T. Greco
Senior Pastor, Christ Church PCA (Katy, TX)
Christ Church Blog

"The heart is the main thing in true religion...It is the hinge and turning-point in the condition of man's soul. If the heart is alive to God and quickened by the Spirit, the man is a living Christian. If the heart is dead and has not the Spirit, the man is dead before God." (J.C. Ryle)

Some of us have only DSL as an option for high speed,
and for that you need a land line. I could get cable internet,
but if I did that I'd also need to get cable TV also (an extra $20
that we'd never use).

No thanks.

__________________
Todd K. Pedlar
member, First Congregational Church, (CCCC) Cresco, IA
http://semperubi.rtrc.net

"Many men, after a long conversion, see more of the workings of sin in their hearts than ever they did before or at their first conversion. Now, such men have not an increase of sin, but an increase of illumination and light" (Christopher Love)


Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

Humm, the problem with leaving in the boonies Here in Raleigh, you can get High speed cable internet with no cable tv.

CT

__________________
Hermonta Godwin
Christ The King PCA
Raleigh, NC

I have a similar system to this: UNIDEN DCT 648-4 DCT648-4 CORDLESS 2.4 PHONE SYSTEM - eBay (item 290242764716 end time Jul-08-08 12:29:08 PDT)

With it I only need to connect Magic Jack to the base unit and can talk from wherever.

CT

__________________
Hermonta Godwin
Christ The King PCA
Raleigh, NC

If the phone's tied in with the computer, and the computer is down, then there's no phone, and running a business I just can't have that. I have a group of cell's for me and the workers, and a land line run by Charter, which is my cable provider, but they use a separate line than the line used for the internet so there's very little down time. The phone service is free if you have the regular package of TV and internet. So communications still costs me 300 or so per month, but I'm not sure what I can do about that practically, as one missed call is one too many.

__________________
Tim Vaughan, 48 years old, member Redeemer OPC, Santa Maria CA.

Do local people calling you by cell phone or land line phone to your Magic Jack have to pay for long distance to call you?

How does Magic Jack work (or not work) for international calls?

I received my Magic jack today and everything is running smoothly.

__________________
David E Yoder, II

Member of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Oak Ridge, TN (PCA)
Living in Knoxville, TN

Not if Magic Jack offers a local number. If it does, then they will pay the same amount as if you had a phone number with the local phone company.

At the time, I purchased Magic Jack a year ago, they did not offer a local number for my area. So I signed up for Grand Central and have the calls to that number forwarded to my Magic Jack number.

To call long internationally, I believe you have to prepay. However if you are international, you can call to the states for free using Magic Jack.

CT

__________________
Hermonta Godwin
Christ The King PCA
Raleigh, NC

Okay, guys. I have spent the past hour or more reading about Magic Jack as I would also like to have an alternative to traditional phone service but more than just a cell phone.

I read some reviews about Magic Jack on CNET, and apparently the way they make it so cheap is that it puts adware on your computer. I want to save money, but I am not sure yet whether this is a good idea. I'll be interested in hearing more input on how the adware effects the computer.

Here is the CNET review and user comments:

Get unlimited local and long-distance calling for 20 bucks a year

__________________
Janis
Christ Church ARP, NC
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved." Eph. 1:3-6 ESV

I was hoping to see a follow-up to this.

We're about to set up service in our house and I want to check my options. It appears that mobility issue of Magic Jack is resolved by connecting it to the home phone lines. And we can't sacrifice local phone service. I have cell for backup. Does anybody have any other thoughts? I'd like to set it up with the least expensive system for internet and phone service, but don't really care about TV. I'm pretty clueless about this stuff.

__________________
For the Glory of our King,
Joe Johnson
Married up in 1988 and blessed with two wonderful sons
TMS graduate
Preacherboy at Cornerstone Community Church, Escanaba, MI
SoundLife.org

We have Charter Internet and have decided to add their phone service (free LD). For the first year, it will only cost $7 more a month than we are paying now. After the year is up, the regular price is still less than we were paying MCI. We are going to pay the $40 for the back-up battery, though, since this cannot be used when the power is out unless you have the battery.

__________________
Janis
Christ Church ARP, NC
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved." Eph. 1:3-6 ESV