magicJack and magicJack Plus Support, Reviews, FAQs and Tricks

marinemaster · magicJack Apprentice Joined: 13 Jan 2009 Posts: 27

This is what I think. I could be wrong but here is my idea. The REASON MJ is so inexpensive is because of the DONGLE. Having an ATA for the same price would be impossible. Support alone would cost MJ a fortune. Think of how many ATA devices there are on the market, plus Asterix and so on, so many other platforms. The dongle to some extent is still a software solution as opposed to an ATA which is a hardware solution. Vonage is $25 a month for a good reason. They use a ATA. ATA will always be more expensive, period. I think Google and others are paying MJ for displaying their name on the MJ dial pad, which means cheaper price for MJ users via the dongle.

The dongle can be controlled by MJ because is proprietary, it can't be messed with, is a set device which makes it cheaper to run.
So let's look at this from a business point of view also.

I do support VOIP at my job, Cisco Call Manager, if any of our customers use other VOIP besides Cisco, they have to pay for support a much higher fee as is outside the norm, so more expensive to support/maintain/etc.

The reason I stopped using Vonage is MJ. Yes Vonage was rock solid for the 4 years I had it, but $25 a month was getting expensive. $20 a year for MJ was much cheaper.

So $20 a year for an ATA using MJ I don't think it will happen. That is why I think MJ cut us off the ATA people. I am not happy about it but I think it was a business decision on their end.

We are yet to see if my idea will prove to be true or false.

doctorman · MagicJack Contributor Joined: 03 Feb 2009 Posts: 53

well your idea makes no sense

why would MJ cuts us off if we dont bother them for tech support or have any expense for them?

it is just a way to force us use the softphone so they can sell ads

or they want to bring their own ATA

and if they will I am sure it will be higher price and will charge you for device so dont worry they will make their money.

dtm · Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 2:12 am Post subject:

Your logic is flawed. Why cut off ATA use when you are not having to support it? It makes no sense to lose all those subscriptions that require no support at all! It is not like any ATA user was going to the chat and asking how to set up his PAP2. Hell we were all scared they would terminate the accounts. Confused

It looks to me like Dan just killed thousands of renewals that were not loading his tech support at all. I, for one, have tried to use the dongle and it crashes my computer about once a day. I have now got another VOIP account with another provider and set up my ATA with no problem.

I liked MJ on the ATA. The quality was good and the price and features were unbeatable. But the dongle is not a workable solution for me and many others. I hope MJ comes to their senses and allows a byod ATA service in the near future. Otherwise they will find a lot of renewals never happen. When the dongle sales saturate, those renewals will be important.

deansouth8 · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 10 Jun 2009 Posts: 3

I'm curious if they are worried about sombody with an asterisk PBX buying 20 MJs and opened a call center with it. CID spoof is no more but still if I were a telephone spammer with a asterisk script it would be worth it for phone spaming. They could be eventually flooded with too much overhead and paying for infrastructure they do not need. Residential only would not be so bad on them. Maybe they are just paranoid.

doctorman · MagicJack Contributor Joined: 03 Feb 2009 Posts: 53

los93sol · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 31 May 2009 Posts: 4

This thread is pointless. I really don't think MJ has cut us off at all, rather they are improving their security and don't support ATA's so this is a side effect. I highly doubt they would go out of their way to block 1% of their users from using an ATA. Less of this nonsensicle discussion and more getting your hands dirty troubleshooting and finding the solution, I already posted my results and identified the new registration process, it has been verified by others that I was correct. What have you guys done besides bitch and complain, get in there, get your hands dirty, and LEARN something.

az2008 · Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 1:37 pm Post subject:

thisiskate · magicJack Apprentice Joined: 11 May 2009 Posts: 20

The reason why Dan wants to kill the ATAs is the server load IMHO. Not everyone runs MJ 24/7 with the dongle. But people who uses ATA runs it 24/7, which means increasing load on their servers. Just my 2 cents.

j1sjeep · MagicJack User Joined: 27 Jun 2008 Posts: 40

doctorman · MagicJack Contributor Joined: 03 Feb 2009 Posts: 53

stop this stupid subject already...

no one cares why they cut us off... just find a way to get back in and for that there are enough threads open.

dtm · Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 5:13 pm Post subject:

Nobody is forcing you to read the thread doc. What is your problem?

doctorman · MagicJack Contributor Joined: 03 Feb 2009 Posts: 53

I am pissed at MJ maybe...

spoonsslick · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 19 Aug 2008 Posts: 5

marinemaster · magicJack Apprentice Joined: 13 Jan 2009 Posts: 27

People it was just an idea, all of you that freak out for $20 a year just chill, is just a phone device after all, I can't believe how people get so bent out of shape over this....

deansouth8 · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 10 Jun 2009 Posts: 3

Spent $40 on it last week $50 ATA shipped here Thursday. Mad

marinemaster · magicJack Apprentice Joined: 13 Jan 2009 Posts: 27

So did I spent $50 to get my ATA....

macman4hire · Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 1:04 am Post subject:

I believe the reason is clearly security related. The magicJack dongle design is flawed by the fact one can pull the SIP credentials from it. I believe if magicJack could have fixed this security flaw that they would have done so already. Can you imagine the financial loss the company would take when people realized that that all they had to do is buy the magicJack at store with a liberal return policy pull the SIP credentials and return it for a refund. Most major retailers sell returns to a company that then sell you the opened box specials. If magicJack takes returns and credits it resellers this process could take months. So it highly unlikely after someone registers a magicJack under fake name and email account that they will ever be found out. It is just not practical for magicJack to verify all the returns and to cancel these accounts. So if magicJack is unable to fix the security issue with dongle the next best thing would be to disable all non USB dongle hardware and software by altering the registration process. The cat and mouse game has begun and at some point someone will give eventually up. If magicJack truly has long term plans and wants to remain viable I am certain that they will introduce revised version of the dongle without the security flaws of the existing ones. This should not pose a huge problem as many in this forum have pointed the constant writing to flash memory to produce device failure. Can you say planed obsolescence! I have read several times times that the device s fails shortly after a year. Do really think this is a coincidence. Probably not! So by the time someone figures out how to use an ATA or softphone magicJack has sured up it security for the SIP credentials on the USB dongle. I realize for some this is hobby and challenge to hack devices but for the casual magicJack user who was begging for answers from gooney in his post get a grip. You are not saving any money if you value your time. If you spend 4 hours scouring the forum for an answer and you are paid $20.00 an hour at your job you are loosing money when you could found another VoIP provider for the cost of your wasted time. Anyways good luck to all and I hope find what you are looking for!

marinemaster · magicJack Apprentice Joined: 13 Jan 2009 Posts: 27

Well said macman.

pagemen · Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 1:22 am Post subject:

well said...except the fact that dongleless softphone setup still works afte the update......Fighting fraud does make sense but I don't think its the real intention.

dtm · Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 9:09 am Post subject:

What softphone software works?

shipingli · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 13 Jun 2009 Posts: 9

pcdocta · MagicJack User Joined: 06 Feb 2009 Posts: 35

My opinion as to why they are enforcing use of their usb dongle... The magicjack software uses advertising banners in which I think helps them to make money. Dont forget, they are the only ones ( I think) that offer voip service for 19.95 per year people, not per month. Can you blame them for trying to protect their interests? But at the same time, there are methods to block the magicjack pop-ups and even to run it as a service so that tells me that not too many people give a rats azz about the banner ads or spending more money on something else other than what we were looking for, voip service for very cheap.
Hopefully someone will crack this latest effort to block our ATAs in the near future. Another idea myself and some friends had and maybe some of you on this forum may have though about, is to get a small profile PC with minimum specs like maybe 512mb ram, 40gb hdd, windows xp, and set it up on the side with the dongle and forget about it. Once you have it up and running and configured, you dont need to have a keyboard, mouse or monitor, just tuck it away and give yourself remote access to it. You still wont see any banner ads and we still will have cheap voip service. Also, for those of you that like to download torrents, you can make this your torrent box also. (a cheap laptop with usb 2.0 would work too). In the end this solution is still way cheaper on the monthly electric bill and the folks at MJ can go F$#@ themselves. Ebay is a place to start.

craigm1 · MagicJack User Joined: 18 Jun 2008 Posts: 43

pcdocta · MagicJack User Joined: 06 Feb 2009 Posts: 35

MJuser909909 · magicJack Apprentice Joined: 13 Jun 2009 Posts: 15

I am running on an old pc now untill my ATA works again, the sound qual is not as good on the pc as it is on the ata. Plus its heating up the closet ive got it it, not to mention having to reboot almost daily as is the norm with winblows..

Cant wait 4 u geniuses to figure it out.

-waiting with bated breath

Cablespider · magicJack Apprentice Joined: 27 May 2009 Posts: 28

Running on an old a$$ Micron laptop. 400mhz P2 with 256mb ram. Tweaked for major power savings. The laptop idles in complete silence and stays cool. Sound quality is just as good as the ATA. I hear no difference and the people I speak with hear no difference.

Nlite'd XP SP3. Never have to reboot the laptop.

pcdocta · MagicJack User Joined: 06 Feb 2009 Posts: 35

agriffiths · magicJack Apprentice Joined: 08 Apr 2009 Posts: 26

Here's my 2c on the theory why they work so hard to cut off the ATA users on MJ.
The post stating that the ATA user is going to generate more traffic than a dongle user, I think makes a lot of sense. However, I think you guys are missing the big picture.
When you google MagicJack, you see a lot of comments about them being "crooks" or "sneaky" or just bad experiences in general. I haven't experienced anything like that with them yet, but where there's enough smoke, there's probably fire.
Also being desperate to get my ATA working again, I've been reading through all the posts I can on this board. It looks like the Wiresharking is extracting quite a bit of info about what MJ is sending back home.
So here you go, I think that the phone/SIP service MJ sells is just a loss leader. It's the buffet for $4.99 that gets you into the casino. I think that the dongle allows them to do a lot of data mining which, in turn, they sell to Mass Marketers, and people along those lines, who make our lives hell. Nothing illegal, I would assume, but just the kind of shit makes you want to kick somebody's ass.
I think the profit for MJ lies in whatever info they call sell about you and they can't gather that info from your computer if you're on an ATA.

What do you guys think?

Stryker · MagicJack User Joined: 27 Apr 2009 Posts: 30

Cablespider · magicJack Apprentice Joined: 27 May 2009 Posts: 28

netdata · magicJack Apprentice Joined: 09 Jun 2009 Posts: 29

If they were smart they would make an iPhone app, put it in the App Store
and sell it for $29.95 with a year of service and make even more profit.

Since they wouldn't have the cost of a hardware device to hold profit back.

That's just my 2 cents but that's what I would do.

Not sure if VOIP stuff violates the App Store rules, but they could
sell it elsewhere or on their own website.

GeorgiaYankee · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 13 Jun 2009 Posts: 6

james1095 · magicJack Apprentice Joined: 10 Jun 2009 Posts: 14

Having also been cut off when MJ did their switch and tried everything I could think of, I decided to try Sipgate since someone else here mentioned it. Having been living with it for a couple weeks now I have to say I'm extremely pleased. I still haven't spent a dime, having only used a few of the 200 free outgoing minutes I got. I got the friend I call most to sign up for the same thing so calling them is free, and all incoming calls are free as well. Given my regular phone usage pattern, it's looking like this will be even cheaper than the MJ and there is no hacking or other unsanctioned behavior needed. From a user standpoint it works well. Sound quality comparable to the MJ+ATA and reliability has been flawless so far.

That said, it is not perfect. If you make a lot of outgoing calls to regular PSTN numbers in North America, the cost could add up. Still, at 1.9c/min you would have to spend a LOT of time on the phone for it to even come close to the base cost of a bare bones landline, but it could still cost somewhat more than Magic Jack.

Another gripe I have is that as of yet it seems it's not possible to buy arbitrary blocks of minutes as needed, but instead it can be set up to automatically purchase blocks of $10, $20, etc when the balance falls below a certain level, but this can be switched on and off.

E911 service is $1.90 or so a month, essentially what you would pay in 911 taxes on a landline. Personally I didn't bother because I have GPS enhanced 911 service on my cell phone. I don't know what happens if you dial 911 without E911 and I don't intend to test it.

It seems you have to be in the US to sign up. They have a dropdown for country but United States is the only option present. There's no reason someone elsewhere couldn't put in a US address, but this may cause problems when it comes time to purchase outgoing minutes.

It is apparently not possible to dial the SIP address directly from another SIP phone. MJ doesn't support this either so perhaps it's not a fair comparison, but it would be a nice feature.

Overall, these gripes are very minor, and the service in general strikes me as a bargain, it's replaced MJ as my main landline.

I have also been playing with a few other SIP providers and have also had good experience with Draytel.org. They are a UK based provider but welcome users anywhere. The online feature set is not as rich as Sipgate, but the basic phone service is comparable. They offer voicemail, CID, etc, and have geographical numbers throughout the UK which are free, but you do have to purchase GBP10 of calling credit to activate that feature, but it does not deactivate if the credit is depleted. Their way of preventing abuse and number hoarding I suppose. As with Sipgate, incoming calls are free, and outgoing calls are comparable to Sipgate. A nice feature is that they do allow dialing the SIP address so you can get a DID elsewhere and use them as the provider.

I tried several other services, none of which offered a free direct local number, but these two are the ones I settled on for now. Given the competitive market and ever-shrinking cost of bandwidth, I suspect we will start to see more and more VOIP providers and pretty soon the once-revolutionary $20/yr Magic Jack pricing will be nothing remarkable. What blows me away is that companies like Vonage manage to charge such exorbitant rates. I saw an ad just today touting $24.99/month service like it was some great deal. With either of these services you'd have to make over 20 hours of outgoing calls a month to be spending what Vonage charges. Hopefully others will find some of this useful.

GeorgiaYankee · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 13 Jun 2009 Posts: 6

magicJack and magicJack Plus Support, Reviews, FAQs and Tricks

Why I think MJ cut off the ATA....more