Using MJ on wireless internet with limited usage...

kelliszoo · Post by **kelliszoo** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 1:08 pm

We live in a rural area and can't get highspeed internet through a landline. We have to go wireless, and all the wireless plans available have limited usage. I'm wondering how much of our allowed usage the MJ would use up.

Say we have 10 GB in our plan, how many minutes / hours would we get on the phone?

We already have a MJ that we use at the office, and we like it, and are considering getting rid of our home phone and replacing it with a MJ if it makes financial sense to do that. We rarely use our home phone, but pay over $40 a month for it, so we're thinking the MJ might save some money if it doesn't use up too terribly much of our allowed usage.

I'm not good at converting kb to GB and all that, so if someone could guve me a rough minutes per GB, that would make it simple for me.

Thanks.

kelliszoo · Post by **kelliszoo** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 3:52 pm

Found my answer, but in case anyone else is in the same boat I talked to a service rep, and I believe it works to just over an hour of phone time per GB.

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 6:03 pm

kelliszoo wrote:Found my answer, but in case anyone else is in the same boat I talked to a service rep, and I believe it works to just over an hour of phone time per GB.

That could be a good ballpark for when you actually make a call. But be aware, that thing is accessing the internet even when you aren't using it. How continual it is, I don't know, but I know it doesn't take long to get an error message that you need to connect to the internet when internet service has been interrupted.

xyzzy · Post by **xyzzy** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 9:36 pm

I believe magicJack uses about 90k bits per second each direction while on a call. That should work out as:

(90,000 (out) + 90,000 (in)) bits/second * 3,600 seconds / hour / (8 bits/byte)

--> 81,000,000 bytes/hour == 81 MB/hour == .081 GB/hour

That is about 12 hours 20 minutes per GB.

There is additional usage when not on a call as nailgunner said. I don't know how much, but it should be MUCH less.

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 9:51 pm

xyzzy wrote: There is additional usage when not on a call as nailgunner said. I don't know how much, but it should be MUCH less.

Logic would suggest that. I noticed though after I got my new device that my CPU usage in Task Manager was constantly on a roller coaster, up..down every second. I was able to tie it directly back to my MJ. I posted here or another forum with no input, so I've ignored it. What is MJ doing? I have no idea, but it's constant, and I'm talking every second...3%..10%..31%..5%..11%..28%. I suppose there's an easy way to tell if it's hitting the internet with that activity.

Diggs · Post by **Diggs** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 10:04 pm

nailgunner wrote:
xyzzy wrote: There is additional usage when not on a call as nailgunner said. I don't know how much, but it should be MUCH less.
Logic would suggest that. I noticed though after I got my new device that my CPU usage in Task Manager was constantly on a roller coaster, up..down every second. I was able to tie it directly back to my MJ. I posted here or another forum with no input, so I've ignored it. What is MJ doing? I have no idea, but it's constant, and I'm talking every second...3%..10%..31%..5%..11%..28%. I suppose there's an easy way to tell if it's hitting the internet with that activity.

I posted the same issue some time ago. The spikes were in the 75% range until after the first call. Then they settled down to what you posted above. Here is a picture of task manager while it was happening. No response to the thread that I posted. Can't believe no one else is seeing this -

http://www.phoneservicesupport.com/cont ... t9458.html

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 10:17 pm

Diggs wrote: I posted the same issue some time ago. The spikes were in the 75% range until after the first call. Then they settled down to what you posted above. Here is a picture of task manager while it was happening. No response to the thread that I posted. Can't believe no one else is seeing this -

http://www.phoneservicesupport.com/cont ... t9458.html

THAT'S IT. Think I heard that on one of the Charlie Brown specials.

It is exactly what mine looks like, and only started doing it with the 4th gen. I even swapped out the prior model I had while it was still active and CPU went down to a constant 1 or 2 %.

I did read on a windows 7 forum that the high usage wasn't a concern, that it meant the computer was making proper use of the memory, so I quit pursuing it. But it does mean MJ is constantly doing something.

Diggs · Post by **Diggs** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 10:31 pm

I'm just hoping it is not reading and writing to the FLASH drive on my thin client thereby wearing it out prematurely. The FLASH drives only have a limited amount of reads and rights before they wear out and fail (or so the story goes).

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 10:57 pm

Diggs wrote:I'm just hoping it is not reading and writing to the FLASH drive on my thin client thereby wearing it out prematurely. The FLASH drives only have a limited amount of reads and rights before they wear out and fail (or so the story goes).

I don't think it is, my hard drive is church quiet most of the time until I do something, so I would think if it was constantly accessing my HD, I would notice, so I think you're safe.

kelliszoo · Post by **kelliszoo** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 11:33 am

I think they actually told me it was 128 KBPS each way, so about 260 for a two way conversation, which works out to 15.6 MB per minute, which equals 64 minutes per GB.

Now about any usage when not actually on the phone, I have no idea, I can't imagine it would be much.

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 1:33 pm

kelliszoo wrote:I think they actually told me it was 128 KBPS each way, so about 260 for a two way conversation, which works out to 15.6 MB per minute, which equals 64 minutes per GB.

Now about any usage when not actually on the phone, I have no idea, I can't imagine it would be much.

If I was on metered internet service, and was planning on keeping my MJ on 24/7, I wouldn't assume anything when it comes to MJ.

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 2:15 pm

I just downloaded a freeware program "BitMeter" that gives real time internet usage. While there is constant activity on the meter, it's not from MagicJack, because when I log off and stop the MJ process, the usage continues.

But as usual, my CPU usage quit spiking when I stopped MJ, so whatever it's doing, and now I'm wondering why it needs to be doing anything when it's not being used, it doesn't appear to be hitting the internet.

cell14 · Post by **cell14** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 3:48 pm

But as usual, my CPU usage quit spiking when I stopped MJ

What percentage of your CPU does your MJ takes when it idles ?

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 3:58 pm

cell14 wrote:
But as usual, my CPU usage quit spiking when I stopped MJ
What percentage of your CPU does your MJ takes when it idles ?

It bounces continually from the 2-3% up to 31..42%. Check out Diggs task manager chart. It's constant. The other "odd" thing is that in the "processes" tab, my MJ process shows its share never going above 3%. All the while the CPU usage at the bottom keeps spiking. The only thing that settles it down is to stop the MJ process.

Edit:
It's just too odd. Just tested it again. Closed everything but MJ. Spiked usage. While my system idle process stays in the 97-99% range, my meter and CPU usage at the bottom, spikes. Stop MJ, all is quiet.

sabresfan · Post by **sabresfan** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 4:59 pm

Use wireshark and see what your MJ is up to. Mine is an older one and cpu usage is minimal. Also look into keeping certain MJ things from communicating with the mother ship.

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 5:10 pm

sabresfan wrote:Use wireshark and see what your MJ is up to.

I will play with it and see what it shows.

Mine is an older one and cpu usage is minimal.

I have NO doubt it's my 4th gen device. As noted above somewhere, when I had both active, I swapped out with my old device and it behaved as expected.

cell14 · Post by **cell14** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 8:42 pm

It bounces continually from the 2-3% up to 31..42%.

My MJ occasionally spikes up to 2.7%, but that's it. My CPU usage on idle is between 0-3%. Disconnecting MJ does not significantly change that.
My MJ is from Nov 2008, mail ordered from Dan. Wonder which generation it is. I run freaking Vista.

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 9:03 pm

cell14 wrote:
It bounces continually from the 2-3% up to 31..42%.
My MJ occasionally spikes up to 2.7%, but that's it. My CPU usage on idle is between 0-3%. Disconnecting MJ does not significantly change that.
My MJ is from Nov 2008, mail ordered from Dan. Wonder which generation it is. I run freaking Vista.

If you don't have an orange sticker on the back, or didn't buy it in the last half year, it's 3rd gen or earlier.

This should let you know exactly which one, if you really have a burning desire to know:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MagicJack/ ... ources/FAQ

cell14 · Post by **cell14** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 11:49 am

This should let you know exactly which one, if you really have a burning desire to know:

Thanks, it seems to be the third generation.

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Mon May 30, 2011 9:11 am

nailgunner wrote:
It bounces continually from the 2-3% up to 31..42%. Check out Diggs task manager chart. It's constant. The other "odd" thing is that in the "processes" tab, my MJ process shows its share never going above 3%. All the while the CPU usage at the bottom keeps spiking. The only thing that settles it down is to stop the MJ process.

Whatever was going on has now stopped. With only MJ running, my CPU usage is staying in the 0-1 % range, where it should have been. Not sure what changed or when, but MJ is no longer causing spikes, so I'm temporarily happy.

Edit: Okay, un-scientifically (watching the CPU meter in task manager), MJ is still causing spikes on my system, but only every 3-4 minutes unlike every 2 seconds as before. I assume the 3-4 minutes is the time frame for MJ calling home. Still not sure what it was doing before because the contact/call lists were not being updated that quickly on their servers, but I guess it doesn't matter because they changed something. (I never did use Wireshark as sabresfan suggested, somehow got distracted and forgot about it, damn ADHD

)