EggXpert

Per Pappahomer PMed me and wanted a poll done.

He would like to know if anyone here has a land line in their home.

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Voted.

I think most of families still have a land line.

Can I ask for what we set this poll?

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yes..but...where's the vote button? 

I requested this poll

I am thinking about giving up my land line....to save money and try to further limit talking to people who I don't want to talk to.

Like FB's friends....

hey PH,, i do have some higher class freinds,,,,,lol

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I.B.O.T.L

ahhhh gooooodness FB... I almost rolled outta my chair.... 

That's a keeper!

Basic service               $16.00

Caller ID & Waiting          $7.18

"Surcharges and Other Fees"  $7.56

Taxes                        $3.18

Long Distance (no calls)     $5.55

(This is before my DSL gets tacked on)

I have not had a landline in about ...8 years now.  I don't talk hell a lot on the phone, and there's no child that's too young to have a cell phone in my household. I have more anytime minutes than I can spend on my cell phone thanks to AT&T's rollover even though I have their cheapest voice plan.  I have some friends in Europe. It would cost me a lot if I called them from my cell phone, but I can use Skype on my computer or on my phone with Windows Mobile 6 to call them.  I guess there's no need or use for a landline in my case.

 I have cable internet with cable TV subscription.  I would like to get FiOS internet but Time Warner has been monopolizing my market of 8 million people and keeping Verizon out to protect their interest.  I'll be getting Verizon TV and FiOS as soon as they make their way into Manhattan, but I won't get their landline service. Too bad they don't have an Internet + TV + CELL phone package + Mobile Broadband package.

 I don't know if this is of any information for you, a lot of people in Manhattan don't have landlines.  We kinda dropped landlines when cell phone plans began to automatically include nationwide long distance. Perhaps because a lot of us are single / not married / have no kids, and live by ourselves or just with roomates / b/fs g/fs etc. Only those with kids or who stay home a lot for whatever reason and therefore make phone calls a lot at home have landlines. Many of us have more than one cell phone: one for business and the other for personal use.

PapaHomer:

Basic service               $16.00

Caller ID & Waiting          $7.18

"Surcharges and Other Fees"  $7.56

Taxes                        $3.18

Long Distance (no calls)     $5.55

(This is before my DSL gets tacked on)

Gotta love how they did that "Surcharges and Other Fees"

Basic service               $10.00

Caller ID & Waiting          $7.00

"Surcharges and Other Fees"  $2.00 Call blocking for mine

Taxes                        $6.35

Long Distance (no calls)     $0.00

Here is how mine lines up. LD will only get charged if used and it has to be international for that to happen.

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I feel so.....so....violated

PapaHomer:

I am thinking about giving up my land line....to save money and try to further limit talking to people who I don't want to talk to.

We had a land line up until a few months ago.  I work from home and we had two land lines, one for business and one for personal use.  I got tired of paying an exorbitant amount every month to Verizon for these lines so I went to Radio Shack and bought a Magic Jack to see how well it works.   To my shock and surprise, it worked, and still works, very well.  I dropped one of the land lines last spring and haven't regretted it at all.  Then we bought another Magic Jack and a set of Panasonic DECT 6.0 cordless phones to use with it and after a couple more months we dropped Verizon's service all together.  We now pay less than 1/2 what we paid for one month ofVerizon service for a year of Magic Jack service on two boxes.  This probably wouldn't work for everyone but we are the typical scenario for people that have reliable high speed internet service.  We are saving about $1,100 a year by going with two MJ's instead of two line Verizon service.  That is a huge savings and people with one line would probably save over $500 per year.

The one down side is you can't transfer telephone numbers yet but that is supposed to change soon.  Also, there are some areas that you can't get numbers with your area code but that isn't a problem for most places.  You can check on area code availability on their web site before you buy one.

PapaHomer:

I feel so.....so....violated

Just dont bend over near Bubba next time when you drop the soap, J/K you left that wide open. And dont go near this guy then you will be violated

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Thanks Mike....

Is there a reason why you just didn't go with cell phone(s)?  I can see for a business you would not want to rely on cell.  

Who is your ISP?  Did you have DSL?   That's one thing I'm kind of wondering about:  would the telco try to pull some new rates for your DSL service.

So basically you have a PC that you leave on 24/7?

PapaHomer:

Thanks Mike....

Is there a reason why you just didn't go with cell phone(s)?  I can see for a business you would not want to rely on cell. 

We still have cell phones.  The Magic Jack has allowed me to keep the minutes on my plan much lower than if all we used were cell phones.  One other perk with the MJ is that we can take them with us when traveling and make or accept calls when we have high speed Internet service which is in about every hotel or motel now.  Also, voice mail messages are sent to the email address of your choice as a WAV file attachement or you can turn off the service and use a conventional answering machine.

PapaHomer:

Who is your ISP?  Did you have DSL?   That's one thing I'm kind of wondering about:  would the telco try to pull some new rates for your DSL service.

We have Comcast.  I doubt that having DSL would affect the service unless it is at a low data transfer rate.  The good thing about buying one at a place like Radio Shack is that you can easily return it in thirty days if it doesn't work for you.

PapaHomer:

So basically you have a PC that you leave on 24/7?

I leave the PC with the home line on 24/7 and the one with the business line on only when I work and let messages come to me via email when it is turned off.  Actually the business messages that come via email is nice because I can save them into that client's work folder on my computer very easily.  Also, I can send and receive faxes on the MJ line too.  The computer that stays on 24/7 has an 80+% efficient power supply and throttles down under low demand so the electricity use is low for it when not in use.

Some people actually build an ultra low power computer just for running the MJ.  They use the Intel Atom processors and extremely small motherboards with no monitor.

Good stuff.   I guess the actual MJ is a fairly simple device and thus fairly reliable?  The VOIP stuff is software driven.

Zowee...didn't think about it taking it with you on travel.   I guess there is an service or app that you need to run in your system tray?

Somebody said something about adware...is there a little banner on the app or something?

My wife seems very interested.

It is super simple to install and use.  From what I can tell all the software, data files etc. runs from the device which makes sense because it has to be portable between computers.  I don't see where it creates any directories or stores files on the hard drive.  There is a system tray icon that runs and when an incoming/outgoing call is made it automatically pops up the larger screen (about 4"x3" on a 22" monitor).  There is a small advertising box but all I have ever seen on it is Magic Jack ads and information.  Even if it had other ads it wouldn't bother me as long as it had no audio.  The software starts and stops when the module is plugged in and unplugged.  It does create two drives when it runs but this hasn't been a problem for me.  I have even changed the drive letters of them without a problem.

I have had mine since February and it has worked nearly flawlessly.  The only time I have had an issue is when I am doing something that is eating up the utilization (close to 100% for each core) of the Intel E6700 CPU I have overclocked to 3.6 ghz and I make or take a call.  Otherwise I can't remember a time I couldn't make or receive a call without very good clarity.  The call quality is just as good as what we had with Verizon 99.9% of the time we use it.  I don't hear any complaints from wife and that is saying something.

Also, you can use any phone or phone system that you can use with a land line.  The phone jack on the MJ functions just the same and will power phones that only take power from the jack.  One thing I recommend is to make sure it can get adequate amperage.  If you have a lot of USB devices that are taking power from the motherboard or hub then it might cause a problem.  If you plug it into a hub make sure it has its own power supply.  My business MJ is plugged into the front USB port on the case but all my other USB devices that are plugged into the case are self powered.  Any USB hubs I use are always self powered too.