Buy it for yourself if you want to try it out, but frankly? It’s becoming less and less useful as a phone alternative as other providers freeze out this very inexpensive VoIP service. My vote this Christmas? Don’t buy a magicJack for a friend. Unless they fix it soon, I’ll be shopping around for a new candidate at which to direct my Google Voice number. It’s putting a huge dent in my faith in magicJack. That’s not the promise magicJack made when I signed up. Yep - long distance calls to other phones inside the US and Canada. And those local companies respond by making us pay a per-minute surcharge. YMax (The owner of magicJack) is only willing to pay the bottom dollar to connect through some local companies. There seems to be a war brewing between regular phone service providers, ISP phone service providers and cheap VoIP phone service providers like magicJack, netTalk and Skype. Until we know more, don’t count on magicJack as a reasonable gift for VoIP this holiday season. If it’s only going to sit in a drawer, you’ve wasted a gift.īut with blocked extensions, blocked skype and even blocked ISP telephone providers, is magicJack a decent way to start your next year?… MagicJack has been having trouble connecting with many small local phone companies… Now also with Skype and sometimes even Google Voice.

Only give this to someone who directly asked for it.

Don’t give this to someone who doesn’t have a fast broadband connection.

Don’t give a tech gift to someone who doesn’t understand it.

Last year, I gave some very specific advice about giving a magicJack for Christmas.

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