[newopty]

I recently moved to LV and am using magicJack for my phone service and Cox cable is my internet provider. At first everything worked fine but recently I have been having garbled conversations. I have worked with both magicJack and Cox to try to fix the problem. Of course, both feel their service is working fine. The biggest problem I am having is figuring out which service is the problem. Does anyone have experience with this service combination or have a suggestion how to localize the problem?

[von949]

What Internet speed do you have? The faster the better. I had MJ while stationed in Korea so I could call back to the states. About 70% reliable.


Posted from Nokia 8210

[newopty]

Originally Posted by von949

What Internet speed do you have? The faster the better. I had MJ while stationed in Korea so I could call back to the states. About 70% reliable.


Posted from Nokia 8210

I have Cox Premier which is up to 25 Mbps. I have tested it and it consistently gets that speed so I doubt it is a speed problem.

I chose magicJack because of the price but wouldn't have a problem switching if I was sure it was the issue. It is a nuisance switching so I want to be sure before I make the change.

[swagger]

Originally Posted by von949

What Internet speed do you have?

Speed will have pretty much nothing to do with it, unless you're saturating your connection with other traffic. I don't know what codec MJ uses, but even if it uses G.711, it would need well under 100kbps each direction to deliver high quality voice service. That falls within pretty much any "high speed" service - even the slowest DSL offering should be at least 128k each direction.

For the OP -

1. What else are you using the connection for? Do you do much downloading or streaming of audio/video while you're on the phone?

2. Do parties on both ends of the call hear the same distortions?

If you can rule out your own network and hardware as being the source of problem, then I'd say that it's much more likely that MJ is the culprit, or possibly there could be some congestion in between Cox's network and MJ. We use VoIP exclusively for our business and home phones (not MJ, though), and have had virtually no problems with Cox or our VoIP providers in roughly six years of service.

I've always questioned MJ's business model, and believe that they're WAY oversubscribing their network. Frankly, I expected them to either be bought out or fold by now.

[newopty]

Originally Posted by swagger

Speed will have pretty much nothing to do with it, unless you're saturating your connection with other traffic. I don't know what codec MJ uses, but even if it uses G.711, it would need well under 100kbps each direction to deliver high quality voice service. That falls within pretty much any "high speed" service - even the slowest DSL offering should be at least 128k each direction.

For the OP -

1. What else are you using the connection for? Do you do much downloading or streaming of audio/video while you're on the phone?

2. Do parties on both ends of the call hear the same distortions?

If you can rule out your own network and hardware as being the source of problem, then I'd say that it's much more likely that MJ is the culprit, or possibly there could be some congestion in between Cox's network and MJ. We use VoIP exclusively for our business and home phones (not MJ, though), and have had virtually no problems with Cox or our VoIP providers in roughly six years of service.

I've always questioned MJ's business model, and believe that they're WAY oversubscribing their network. Frankly, I expected them to either be bought out or fold by now.

Thank you for the response. In answer to your questions:

1. I typically don't do any downloading or streaming while on the phone. I am not a gamer and don't do much downloading of audio/video.

2. Both parties hear the same distortions.

I used magicJack in my previous location and had decent quality with the exception that it would drop calls on occasion. I wasn't sure if the problem was magicJack or my internet provider. I was hoping that moving would solve the problem but unfortunately it has gotten worse. My year contract with MJ is up next month and I am trying to figure out what to do. I really wouldn't mind changing services and have heard good things about Ooma. I just fear I will go through the hassle of switching and will have a similar problem.

[swagger]

Originally Posted by newopty

Thank you for the response. In answer to your questions:

1. I typically don't do any downloading or streaming while on the phone. I am not a gamer and don't do much downloading of audio/video.

2. Both parties hear the same distortions.

I used magicJack in my previous location and had decent quality with the exception that it would drop calls on occasion. I wasn't sure if the problem was magicJack or my internet provider. I was hoping that moving would solve the problem but unfortunately it has gotten worse. My year contract with MJ is up next month and I am trying to figure out what to do. I really wouldn't mind changing services and have heard good things about Ooma. I just fear I will go through the hassle of switching and will have a similar problem.

I don't know much about Ooma, beyond having seen the commercials. I use providers that are geared more toward business or techie customers, rather than the mainstream consumer, so I just don't have the experience with those guys.

My "standard" recommendation that I've been using for years is to go with Callcentric.com for the provider, and pick up a Grandstream ATA to connect the phone to. Switching to someone else also has the benefit of cutting the tether between your phone and your computer that MJ requires (if it still requires it).

We've used Callcentric for our home phone for many years and the service is great. They offer an "all you can eat" plan similar to Vonage, for about the same price, but if you do the math you'll probably find that it's much cheaper to get the unlimited inbound plan for a few bucks per month and the pay per minute plan for outbound calls. You'd have to do a LOT (and I mean A LOT) of outbound calling for it to not be cost effective vs. the unlimited-everything plan.

Now that recommendation is what I've been making for years, and I've been suggesting it for longer than Ooma and some of the other services have been around, so you should investigate those offerings further.

[von949]

Originally Posted by swagger

Speed will have pretty much nothing to do with it, unless you're saturating your connection with other traffic. I don't know what codec MJ uses, but even if it uses G.711, it would need well under 100kbps each direction to deliver high quality voice service. That falls within pretty much any "high speed" service - even the slowest DSL offering should be at least 128k each direction.

For the OP -

1. What else are you using the connection for? Do you do much downloading or streaming of audio/video while you're on the phone?

2. Do parties on both ends of the call hear the same distortions?

If you can rule out your own network and hardware as being the source of problem, then I'd say that it's much more likely that MJ is the culprit, or possibly there could be some congestion in between Cox's network and MJ. We use VoIP exclusively for our business and home phones (not MJ, though), and have had virtually no problems with Cox or our VoIP providers in roughly six years of service.

I've always questioned MJ's business model, and believe that they're WAY oversubscribing their network. Frankly, I expected them to either be bought out or fold by now.

I figured speed had something to do with it since I could not do ANYTHING while using MJ. No web browsing, no surfing, no back ground music,no chatting, nothing. Even if I moved my mouse curser on the screen, I would hear some distortion. I basically just had to sit there and talk.

[Danknee]

Originally Posted by newopty

Thank you for the response. In answer to your questions:

1. I typically don't do any downloading or streaming while on the phone. I am not a gamer and don't do much downloading of audio/video.

2. Both parties hear the same distortions.

I used magicJack in my previous location and had decent quality with the exception that it would drop calls on occasion. I wasn't sure if the problem was magicJack or my internet provider. I was hoping that moving would solve the problem but unfortunately it has gotten worse. My year contract with MJ is up next month and I am trying to figure out what to do. I really wouldn't mind changing services and have heard good things about Ooma. I just fear I will go through the hassle of switching and will have a similar problem.

Is the router you have now different from the one you used previously? You may just need to forward some ports in your router settings, but MJ support should have addressed that possibility with you already.

Port Forwarding Instructions for the magicJack PLUS *guide* | magicJack and MagicJack Plus Support, Reviews, FAQs and Hacks