magicJack and magicJack Plus Support, Reviews, FAQs and Hacks

Bill Smith · Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 11:37 am Post subject: Anybody used 911 on MJ?

Has anybody called 911 with MJ? Did the call go directly to your local 911 center? Please share your experience. Thanks.

mav1989 · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 01 Jun 2008 Posts: 2

Yes, I've called 911 once on my magicjack and it went directly to my local sheriff's department, they already knew my address and everything.

csebes · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 26 Mar 2009 Posts: 2

I did as well. My son fell down the stairs a few months ago and he said his back hurt. My wife dialed 911 and before the dispatch even answered, my son got up and wanted to start playing with his trains. So, my wife hung up the phone. About a minute later, the phone rang and it was the sheriff's office asking if someone had dialed 911. I explained the situation and thanked them for checking up. About 3 minutes after that, a squad car pulled up outside to check up on us. I explained to him what happened and asked if he wanted to see my son. He didn't and I thanked him for stopping over.

So yea, it works.

PTravel · Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 3:07 am Post subject:

Same here. I reported gun shots in the middle of the night. It went to the local sheriff's office. It definitely works and works well.

maine-iac · Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 7:26 am Post subject:

This is all good to know but I would still have a backup plan to call 911. MJ works for me but I wouldn't trust my family's life with it.

robatino · MagicJack Expert Joined: 29 Aug 2008 Posts: 97

Has anyone tried it with the dongleless setup? Last I checked, no one knew if 911 worked with that.

VoipDude · Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 10:02 pm Post subject:

I do not use the dongle, but rather an ATA, and I called my county communications center to inform them that I would like to do a test call to 911.

They told me to hang up, and dial 911 and they would alert them that I would be doing a test call.

When I dialed 911, using my ATA, they confirmed that it works fine, and showed my correct address.

aneelmaan · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 12 Jan 2009 Posts: 6

I use a WRT54GS (with DD-WRT) with mjmd5 and a sipura spa 2102-r for my magicjack software. When I dialed 911 to test it, it gave me a fast busy tone. About one minute later, they called back and said hello (My City) police department, whats your emergency? I was like hi i was just testing to see if my e911 services are working. She said "Next time, dont hang up sir." I never hung up on her lol

sabresfan · Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2009 1:54 pm Post subject:

I just called and tested out 911 as well and the call was routed perfectly. I called our local 911 dispatch office first and told them I wanted to try out 911 to make sure it worked correctly. They told me to call right back and I even ended up talking to the same 911 dispatcher. She gave me all my 911 info thats on the bottom of the softphone without any problems. This puts me at ease and definately makes MJ a viable replacement to a pots line in my opinion.

CDJ · magicJack Apprentice Joined: 07 Sep 2009 Posts: 13

I just tested mine and it worked fine, they had my name, number and everything they needed.

captnorm · Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 8:24 pm Post subject:

I just had a lengthy chat w/magicjack un-technical support and they said dialing 911 on my phone will not provide the 911 operator with my address (my unit is registered & I entered my correct address & it shows up correctly on the dialer). They say I need to hit the 911 button in their dialer. In reading this thread, it sounds like everyone just dialed 911 from a phone, is that correct?

Thanks,
Norm

Nobody beats the Whiz! · Dan Should Pay Me Joined: 26 Oct 2009 Posts: 559

captnorm · Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 9:29 pm Post subject:

It sounds like dialing 911 from a phone does indeed work, right?

Glad the tech guy was wrong, was hoping just dialing from a phone would give the emergency team my entered address.

Nobody beats the Whiz! · Dan Should Pay Me Joined: 26 Oct 2009 Posts: 559

VoipDude · Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 11:25 pm Post subject:

MagicJacked · MagicJack Expert Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 81

I was on vacation, renting a house for a week. The 911 service would not go green. Seems they could not confirm the address. The house had a phone, so did not really need MJ 911, but figured i would try. Ended up with 2-3 extra 911 entries that all did not work. MJ support said those entries could not be deleted. When I got home I selected the old entry for my house and it went green. Never called 911 using the MJ.

FunkyBoss · magicJack Apprentice Joined: 25 Dec 2009 Posts: 19

I was wondering this myself. So how did you guys call the 911 dispatcher first without actually dialing 911? Just by calling the local police dept non-emergency line?

mufon · Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2010 3:05 pm Post subject:

I have my local 10-digit police/fire dispatch number taped to all my phones. I would not stake my life on MJ 911!

Hooker Jay · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 26 May 2009 Posts: 2

I live in western Monroe County in Michigan about 5 minutes east of Dundee. Back in 2003 we had a land line through Talk America, and when I had to call 911 for my father, it took 20 minutes before the Monroe County EMTs showed up and he was already dead. On the day of his funeral, the local paper ran a story were the reason why Monroe County 911 is soooo slooooow as opposed to dialing emergency response directly was because the county didn't have the budget for hiring local dispatchers unless they were non-union subcontractors (i.e. not gonna happen Razz

). Thus, calls to 911 were automatically re-routed to Lansing dispatchers who then -- yup, you guessed it -- dialed the closest response crews directly from their end ... Shocked

So when I got a MagicJack in 2008, I remembered that bureaucracy kills ... Twisted Evil

... and thus chose to register a phone number from the exchange pool of a neighboring township who I knew had local unionized emergency response dispatchers. Had to dial 911 for my mother between 4 to 6 times since then ... and Dundee Michigan's EMTs are here within 7 to 10 minutes every single time! In fact, EMTs from Lenawee County showed up the last time I called 911 ... Smile