[mdlug] The DSL and MagicJack thread

[dave]

Joe Doehler wrote:

>At 11:30 PM 4/17/2009, Drew wrote:
>...
>  
>
>>Acording to ATT's website, it is supposed to be possible now to
>>have a DSL line *without*
>>POTS phone service for $19/month (basic, 786k-down) or $25/month
>>(faster, 1.5M-down). And
>>the MagicJack of course is something like $40 for the first year, and
>>$20 for additional years.
>>    
>>
>...
>
>When I moved a few years ago, I had to switch from cable to AT&T DSL, 
>and I took my Vonage phone with me. Where I moved to, the max DSL 
>speed was 128/256K (u/d), and the phone conversation would frequently 
>and annoyingly be blanked out, making the Vonage phone barely usable. 
>I imagine that the MagicJack has similar bandwidth requirements, so a 
>speed of 768K should be OK, but make sure about your upstream speed, 
>and that no ports are blocked. There are countless reports if ISP's 
>slowing down VoIP traffic from competitors.
>
>I now have cable and a MagicJack, and the combination works 
>surprisingly well, even though the connection is through an 802.11b 
>leg: I have nothing bad to say about it. I use that same WiFi leg to 
>watch streaming video from Netflix, and there's enough bandwidth left 
>for MagicJack to work at the same time. So a place like Panera would 
>be a good test.
>
>I still own the DSL modem that I used with AT&T. You can have it for 
>the price of picking it up (I am in White Lake), with the caveat that 
>you make it available to other members of this list for the same 
>price (or less) if it does not work out for you. It is a Cayman 3500 
>Series DSL modem, model 3546-002, made by Netopia; details can be 
>found at http://www.netopia.com/support/
>
>The MagicJack installation software is within the MagicJack itself, 
>so it is a certainty that it won't work with bare Linux. It won't 
>work with my W2K system.
>
>I use the MagicJack to make outgoing calls only - those that I expect 
>to be long ones. I use my cell phone (now with the cheapest plan) for 
>all other calls; the idea is to keep my XP box off most of the time.
>
>Joe.
>
>___________
>

I've had vonage for 4 years and no POTS line. First, I used a covad 
reseller w/o problems. Then I fell for the Comcast sales pitch for their 
business cable being faster than DSL. Immediately upon switching I would 
get intermittent asymmetric drop-out on Vonage. Some days the caller's 
voice side would go silent for seconds at a time, other calls it would 
be the reciever's. I trouble shot the problem to the comcast boarder 
routers adding up to 3 seconds latency to traffic to / from Vonage, but 
not to other sites in similar IP ranges. When every I would call comcast 
for technical support, their answer was I needed to switch to their 
voice service. I dropped them and have a 6m down/768k up with ATT, no 
POTS and no traffic meddling. They call it a "dry loop" and your phone 
number will be something like "085-232-xxxx"

-dave