On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 4:44 PM, Mark Knecht <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 12:46 PM, Paul Hartman > <[email protected]> wrote: >> On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 12:31 PM, Mark Knecht <[email protected]> wrote: >> MJ does offer some form or enhanced >>> 911 service (U.S. emergency number as possibly you're in the U.K. >>> based on the link you provided) if I sign up for it which is a concern >>> if we were to completely drop our land line. >> >> I believe E911 is legally required for any VoIP provider in the United >> States. >> > > Their web site has some info about this. I figure what I actually get > is what I actually get and probably not worth worrying about right > now. > > http://www.magicjack.com/4/faq/ > > >> I use Callcentric (with a Linksys SPA2102 obtained from ebay for >> $20ish) and the $1.50 E911 fee makes up nearly half of my phone >> bill... :) >> > > OK, so the CalccCentric plans look a lot like MagicJack, but you can > use it directly with your router? I like that as of course the routers > are on all the time and wouldn't be subject to long Gentoo emerge / > reboot updates on my MythTV server.
The service of most VoIP providers is not tied to any device. (I don't know about MagicJack's dongle, but I know Vonage is locked to their device and you can't use your own, and some let you use your own but then are locked to that and you have to call them to change it.) You can basically use any SIP-compatible device and go. You can set it up on your PC with a full-fledged PBX like Asterisk, or simply use a soft-phone (there are a few in portage), use a SIP client on your mobile phone (take your home phone number with you, making/receiving calls over wifi or 3G). or with dedicated hardware wired to your home phone lines (as I've done), or whatever. Depending in the provider/plan you get you can use multiple lines, like in a business, so for example if your wife is on the phone you can make another call -- from the same phone number. You can create a free Callcentric account and completely set it up to see how it works for you before paying anything or porting your phone number etc. They have documentation on how to configure it on many different devices and software and they have test numbers you can call to give it a try. If nothing else you could do it just to see how the set up might go with MagicJack before you commit to porting your phone number to them, since it's probably the same process with a few different settings filled in. > Is you SPA2102 your main router for your house or is it behind a more > general router with wireless capabilities? I need wireless around the > house so I guess I'd have to find the right device if it's too > difficult to open port ranges for VoIP. I suspect it isn't too > difficult? The SPA2102 is just the VoIP box for me, that's its only purpose in my set-up. It has an ethernet port i hooked up to the internet, a couple phone jacks that you can plug your phone lines into, configure the settings and never touch it again. I just have it sitting behind my normal wireless router. They have screenshots of what the setup process is like here: http://www.callcentric.com/support/device/linksys/spa3102 (even though that's for the 3102, the screens are identical to the 2102). I upgraded the firmware to the latest available before setting it up, I believe the original firmware version didn't have all the codecs or options. I could protect its traffic on my router (DD-WRT) too but haven't felt like figuring that out yet. My internet is not maxed out that often (I have 20mbit so most downloads only take seconds, and, if not, then they aren't using all of my bandwidth anyway) and VoIP only uses a very tiny amount of data. If you want to jump through some hoops and are open to getting a new phone number, there are ways to place and receive VoIP calls completely for free, too. If you google it you'll find thousands of results. :)
