There were a few of our group asking about alternative free calling to our conference lines.  We mentioned the popular Magic Jack as a viable alternative.

http://www.magicjack.com/

We just recently discovered that this service is, in fact, too good to be true and the advertising promoting this device is false and misleading:

"YES! magicJack allows you to call almost anywhere in the world.

Call from your magicJack from any country to the U.S. and Canada and the call is free.

Call from a magicJack to a magicJack in any country and the call is free.

Call from the U.S. or Canada to the U.S. or Canada and the call is free.

Call from your magicJack to another country, other than the U.S. or Canada, and you must prepay for international minutes."


Our main conference line is a number in Iowa.  This number can no longer be called from a Magic Jack.  We have no idea how many other numbers are being blocked so you can't call them.

The Magic Jack is not a viable device and is falsely advertised.  Just thought everyone should know.  We apologize for suggesting this to anyone.   :-[

Hey tom. If you want a good cheap phone service, Vonage is really pretty good. Everything is very straightforward from what my friends tell me. And their calls are very clear. I have another friend that has magic jack and he says it works - sometimes. Whenever I call him ( he lives right across town) half the time I can't get through. I believe it all depends on what phone service the person you are calling has.

Thanks for the tip, Randy.  We have a similar one through Comcast.  Same setup.  Works well.  

We did try the Magic Jack one too.  Think that one is going to go into the trash.  Going down hill in a screaming tailspin...

Sorry if I'm a little outside of the scope of this topic.  Yeah, there may be compatibility issues with some Key Systems or PBX's.  Sure the marketing is hype.  Although it may not be of use for your conference system the product does indeed work.  For example if you don't have a land line, want or need continuous VOIP service, you can still reliably use Magic Jack to call out on.  Instead of using mobile service minutes waiting on hold I have used this product many times to call into various organizations that do have PBX systems.  It works well for me personally.  

I'm glad someone had a good experience with it.  ;)

For us, it has been less than useless.  Sometimes it worked well, but most of the time it was an exercise in reconstructing a conversation from every third word.   :P  The quality was so poor it was impossible to use.

Then they started blocking numbers and, from what I understand, cutting people off when they made too many calls.

Anyway, it's in the trash can now.