Dan's Main Man For Tech Support

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 6:36 pm

If you have grown tired and frustrated from the online tech support people who try but are really not that good, then try emailing the head mechanic in this company. His name is Mike Shippey and he just got my phone fixed after not being able to make alot of local calls for awhile. I'm in area 360-Dan gave him my problem and in one day it was fixed! Try him-
[email protected]

HolmanGT · Post by **HolmanGT** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 7:05 pm

saxman,

I wonder how many calls it will take before Mike has his email address changed. He is going to get a flood of mail after this post, especially if you have ever once talked to the MagicJack Tech Chat people.

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 7:25 pm

Holman,
That's fine. That's his job and he may just pass them on to his support people to help handle anyway. I have gotten 3 emails from Dan today talking about Qwest phone company and the problems they are having with them as I am also. They keep turning off my dsl by (accident). I quit their phone but still have their dsl as I have one more year under their "price for life" contract. Then for 8 more bucks a month I can switch to cable (because I now have cable tv) and go from 1.5 mb to 8! I've told people on DSL Reports and Qwest don't like it-they have been the big dog calling the shots for many years and don't enjoy these new VOIP outfits taking their business. Too bad! It's called free enterprise baby! Welcome to America!

Anyway, they were happy I reported the problem in this area code and got it fixed fast. Mike and his tech crew need to know about some of these problem areas in order to work on them. So, just know that your doing the company a favor by letting them know of any problems. This really is still in beta and we really are the test monkeys-lol

HolmanGT · Post by **HolmanGT** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 7:38 pm

saxman,

I didn't realize that Mike was in the customer problem loop. I thought he was just some poor Engineer that got stuck with persistent customers.

As far as Qwest "accidentally" shutting you down, I have only one thing to say about that "Accident, Ya-right" want to buy some swamp land.

I also bet that besides losing business to VOIP companies they must also love losing people to the cable companies. People bailing out to cable for their Broad Band has to be huge number. Qwest is way overpriced for the service they provide.

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 8:04 pm

Since posting complaints on the Qwest thread on DSL REPORTS my service with Qwest mysteriously sank. Here's what's happend so far. Soon after getting MJ up and running I call Qwest to cancel my phone. I tell them I still want their dsl and I have another year to go with the contract anyway. Well in alot of states they don't sell stand alone dsl. They don't like it because the money is in the phone bill not the dsl. But here in Wa. the politicians forced them to sell it as a stand alone product. They hate it. So, they get back by saying I breached the contract or altered it by stopping the phone service. They raise the price for the dsl alone from 26 a month to 36 a month for 1.5 mb. So, I complained about that and the fact that they will charge me a $300.00 penalty to break the contract. So, I now pay 36 a month for 1.5 mb and because I have cable I can get 8mb for 44 a month!-Big difference. So, since posting this complaint on their site, I have lost internet service 2 times in the last 2 months.I had to run to the store and use a pay phone to call them and they actually laughed when I told them I had no phone because they shut off my internet! The first time it happened the woman said it was a "computer error" and should not have happened. Ok ,so last month same thing happens, again I go to the store. This time this real nasty woman says it was shut off because I owe them 44.00 and it's 2 weeks over due!! I said "you got to be kidding me" I've had Qwest for over 30 years and been late many times and never had it shut off. How come all of a suden this is happening for a lousy 44 bucks? She was a stone cold mean bi--- and said is there anything else? I said yea "tell me when I can finally get rid of you guys and switch to cable and go 7 times faster for 8 more bucks a month?" The line went dead!

Also, I caught them slowing my internet speed down. I noticed it running real slow and called their tech people. They checked and said for some reason it was running about half the speed it should be. Nice-and all of this since I quit them and complained about them online. Also I should never have told them about getting MJ. Bottom line-Qwest is losing customers to VOIP and Cable and they ain't liking it one bit. They have had things their way for many years and now people are trying to save money by switching them out and their getting mean and nasty. The communication wars are here and we the people will end up the winners with cheap phone service. I'm really looking forward to the day when I can also get my cable tv online at a real cheap price. Are ya listening Dan?

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 8:13 pm

saxman,

"I didn't realize that Mike was in the customer problem loop. I thought he was just some poor Engineer that got stuck with persistent customers."

When I wrote to Dan a few days ago about not being able to make some local calls, he said they would get right on it, which he did. The same day I got a reply from Mike and today another from him a few more from Dan saying it's been fixed. Dan said they are trying hard to get it all working right so any problems should be reported asap, imo. If all bugs are worked out now, maybe by this time next year this thing will be running Lexus smooth!

HolmanGT · Post by **HolmanGT** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 8:15 pm

SAXMAN,

"The communication wars are here and we the people will end up the winners with cheap phone service"

I think you are 100% right on, now if we could just get my Cable bill down. I pay more per month for my Cable/Broad Band than I do for my Heat/Cooling bill.

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 8:26 pm

Yea-I know-Right now it's pretty much cable vs. Direct tv for the money. I checked out the online satellite sites but found them lacking in choice of programs. I think someone like Dan or maybe Dan himself will figure a way to provide all 3 services through one line. It would ber great to have cable, internet and phone all on one line and one bill. Maybe 50 bucks a month for all of it! (o-excuse me, I meant 50 a year for all of it)lol -there's no reason they can't all be transmitted to one dish-wireless is here to stay and the cost in oil to make all that cable must be alot. Wireless everything is the future and the future is now. I'll bet within the next few years we will have a cheap alternative to cable tv-I'm staying away from any contracts as things are moving quick in that direction. Bluetooth is expensive but the price should be coming down real fast soon and all electronics will be bluetooth or some other name and in Walmart real soon. Maybe a bluetooth plasma tv with phone and internet built in.!-All for less then 100 bucks!

HolmanGT · Post by **HolmanGT** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 8:38 pm

saxman,

I believe the folks that have fiber to the house already have all of that on one cable. And when they say they have Broad Band they are not talking about some paltry 6 mega bits down and 512 kbits up. Some of those folks have 30 to 50 megs up and down. God if I had something like that I would be positive I had died and gone to heaven.

And then to add insult to injury I have to listen to these people on DSLreports complain that their down load speed are slow today they are only getting 45 mega bit/second and they are seriously mad. I would trade my Kingdom (if I had one) for the speeds those folks get on their worst day.

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 8:58 pm

Yea-I hear that. I know you can get it all on one line but it's real expensive (to me anyway). Also, it's on a cable when I think it's just a another year or two and all that service will be wireless and much cheaper. Lets break it down. For now I pay Comcast around 80.00 a month for tv service. I pay Qwest 36 a month for dsl and 0 a month for phone. Now, it would seem right for one company like MJ to take all these and provide them wireless for alot less. The people of this country would love to pay less for all three of these and for someone like Dan to put them all in one package and sell it for even half the cost we now pay, well, he would dominate the entire communication market in one swoop. I may ask him about this just for the hell of it. A cheap wireless tv signal would be fantastic! Have you found any online satellite sites that have any decent choices in programs? I haven't.

Stewart · Post by **Stewart** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 9:14 pm

Here in Paris I have a typical triple-play (Internet, TV, and phone) on an ordinary DSL line, costing 30 euros (~$48 ) per month. Internet speed is whatever your modem can get on your line; in my case it's about 11 Mbps down and 1.2 Mbps up. The syndic (condo association) recently approved installation of fiber in the building. When that arrives, speed will be Fast Ethernet (~80 Mbps) up and down, for the same price. The Internet service is rock solid, includes a static IP address (with custom DNS if desired) and there is no prohibition against running servers. Modem (lease price included in the bundle) has a decent wireless-N router and four wired ports. The phone service is great, using an ATA built into the modem. Unlimited calling to 70 countries (!); see http://adsl.free.fr/tel/tarifs/ . Unlike US cable providers, you can also access the phone service via SIP, using any softphone, ATA, IP phone, Asterisk, etc. TV is not bad, either. The modem has HDMI and component HD outputs; you can also watch or record on your PC (same or different program as shown on the TV). Although the 93 basic channels are mostly garbage (see http://adsl.free.fr/tv/ ) you can add just the channels you want without buying expensive packages, e.g. CNN costs 0.25/mo.

It's a shame that the US regulators have not fostered some real competion; the service I have back in Reno sucks by comparison.

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 9:33 pm

Thats great price Stewart but is that tv service through the internet or is it through the cable. I haven't found any internet satellite tv sites that's got any channels I like. If that's a cable tv you have then you've got a super deal goin on. Do you use the Mj at at all or when is needed? Maybe to call abroad to other MJ users?

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 9:54 pm

I tried to check out the tv ad but my French is rusty. I need it in the language of RENO -the prices should start falling for all this stuff as more companies get into it and start combining them to give us all a cheap combo.And to have it all wireless would be great. So sick of dealing with cables and wires. Like everything else in the field, it will get real cheap soon. I'm sure Walmart has their people in China putting together some total wireless communication/entetainmnt center that is real affordable for the adverage Joe 6 pack. Right now Joe is struggling just to keep gas in the car let alone pay big cable bills or be able to switch to Bluetooth. But it's comin. We need more guys like Dan The Man. Making phone calls affordable. Now we need a tv guru to stop the blood sucking channel hogs who are raking in tons of money from tv viewers. We need internet tv to improve and give us free channels. Then we need free lunch right after that! Well, maybe I'll buy my own lunch if I can get free tv. With the price of gas people are not able to go alot of places so we need cheap tv.

Stewart · Post by **Stewart** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 9:59 pm

It's IPTV, using H.264 coding. It comes over whatever pipe you have to the ISP. In my case (dry DSL), when watching a hi def program (takes ~8 Mbps), Internet speed drops considerably, and there isn't enough bandwidth to get two hi def channels at the same time. With the fiber upgrade, those problems will be gone.

In addition to the Paris line, I also use MJ and other American VoIP services here. Mainly, so I can answer my Reno phone from here. I also usually use an American service to call the US, because I can't spoof caller ID on the Paris line. Although calling the US on it is free for me, if someone returns the call without noticing the number, especially from a cell phone, it can cost them a lot!

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 10:07 pm

Too bad Grand Central dosen't work overseas. As far as I know, that may have changed. You could give out a local Reno number and have GC call you there-Free for everyone. I don't think that's available yet.
Stewart. As long as your here, got a question. When I play the game Half Life 2 and the phone rings, it just keeps ringing solid and then when I pick up it goes dead. I call the number and it works fine. It does this every time. I haven't tried it with another game and this is the only time this happens, so far. I do use the Hawking Booster and would think it would be able to sort the traffic so this dosen't happen but maybe this particular game uses alot more bandwidth then others. Any idea?

sbb · Post by **sbb** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 10:43 pm

I have U-verse which is IPTV. They offer VoIP (although not in my area yet). Their VoIP is not even remotely competitive ($40 or $50 per month). My point here is that all this: TV, Phone, Internet comes over your standard copper phone lines. My VDSL connection is at 50 Mbps with 30 Mbps allocated for TV. You can get up to 4 SD video streams at the same time (yes, you can record 4 programs at once). You can purchase up to 10 down 1.5 up for Internet.

It is ROCK SOLID. I have had the service since August and had 2 outages that lasted less than 10 minutes each and they occurred within 10 minutes of each other back in September. Oh, I forgot to mention that the TV and Internet is about $40 cheaper than I was paying for AT&T DSL and Dish Network previously. Now I only need to cancel my phone and use magicJack and we can add another significant chunk of savings.

I love technology.

Oh Yeah, I had serious issues with MJ and emailed Dan. He replied within 2 minutes and sent it on to a different person than this post speaks of. Within 2 days my problem was solved and it had been going on for almost 2 weeks.(incoming callers could not hear me)

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 11:34 pm

Thanks for that . I read about it and they do run the signal through copper wire but only about the last 1000 ft to your house. The rest is run through fiber optic. Unfortunately, it's not yet available here in the Northwest. It would be better if it was wireless and cheaper.

sbb · Post by **sbb** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 1:30 pm

It is fiber to a VRAD and then copper from there to the home. I believe the wire length limit is around 3500 Ft.

I noticed you are all about wireless. You realize there is additional equipment required for wireless transmission which I believe would result in an increased price. They still need to get the signal to the neighbor hood but instead of using the EXISTING copper they need additional equipment to send a wireless signal.

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 3:20 pm

Direct tv does a good job of that and the price is the same as cable. If they had internet as well as phone and tv and had it all at a good price they would take the market over. The wire line is on the way out.

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 7:06 am

I wonder how much oil it takes to make all those miles and miles of cable to feed to our homes. I'll bet the savings of oil alone just in America would be staggering. Not to mention the damage it does to the enviroment to be trenching everywhere. Yea, wireless is the enviromentaly friendliest option. I did have Direct tv but the apartment owner decided he know longer wanted dishes on the building and my HD dish was too heavy for a tri-pod and I didn't feel like spending $150.00 to have it cemented in the ground and have a crew bury the line. So I have cable for tv and dsl through the phone co. for internet. I give Bill Gates money every month for his MSN but only because I know he really needs it. I'm surprised he hasn't gotten in on VOIP or TV service yet.

sbb · Post by **sbb** » Sun Apr 27, 2008 1:28 pm

First of all it isn't costing any oil for the copper lines, they have been there for YEARS. They are running new fiber to neighborhoods, Oil - who knows if I undertand correctly fiber is glass. Bill Gates HAS gotten into IPTV, the Uverse system I have runs on the MediaRoom platform from . . . MicroSoft.

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Sun Apr 27, 2008 7:34 pm

fiber optic cable is like any other cable. It has a petroleum based shield around it and yes it does take alot of oil to produce those lines.