Home : Blogs : John Hokkanen → Encinitas Real Estate : Encinitas Real Estate and Homes - EncinitasCarlsbad.com

SERIOUS drawback to MagicJack VOIP widget

OK, I was all hepped up to get rid of my plain old telephone line. I plugged in my MagicJack into my USB port on my computer. Two days ago I had upgraded to cable modem, so I had plenty of bandwidth outgoing, and I figured this was going to be a slam dunk. I called a few people, and the new VOIP widget made things sound just a tad tinny, but it was definitely acceptable and usable, especially since there are no long distance charges.

What went wrong? THEN I plugged my fax into it. I dialed out to my fax server. It rang, connected and started transmitting. I got a "No Good" on the transmit. I tried again, same thing. And a third time.

So I ran a Google search "problem sending fax with MagicJack" or similar search. THAT'S WHEN I GOT TO SEE THE FINE PRINT. Apparently MagicJack doesn't support fax machines. Or, more accurately, the codec that their VOIP algorithm uses to transmit the data (and possibly ANY VOIP codec--but I'm not sure) does not use error correction and will likely fail. Further research showed that some people have some success some of the time transmitting their faxes to some fax machines. HOWEVER, I use fax.com, and I was completely unsuccessful, even after turning off error correction on my fax machine and reducing the speed to 2400bps.

Fortunately, I have not yet turned off my last telephone line, and so now my fax machine sits on the one telephone line, completely idle 99% of the time. I haven't figured out exactly what I am going to do, YET. But HERE'S THE THING - no where during sign up or the advertising literature (or the 30 minute commercial that marketed MagicFax to businesses) was there anything said about the unit not supporting fax machines. This is pretty basic stuff for a home office. I don't know if I should send the MagicFax unit back or not. It works well with the telephone sets, but if I am going to have a phone line, I can easily hang the phones on it, and I don't have to worry about any intermittent performance on the cable modem.

John Hokkanen, Encinitas Real Estate

Posted by John Hokkanen → Encinitas Real Estate on 03/14/2008 12:35 AM

Comments (23)

fax machine, magicfax

23 Comments on SERIOUS drawback to MagicJack VOIP widget

MAR

2008

Hey John!

Just glazed over the website. Guess you go with a different VOIP or with BJ at $40 a year just go down to the basic on the land line for your fax. (Will also give you a back up when the cable modem goes down. They always do)

Good luck

Tony

MAR

2008

I was looking at your original blog and went looking at the MagicJack. All I really need anymore is something I can fax from once in a while. If you get it to work let me know.

MAR

2008

Faxing and transmitting other data (such as DirecTV updates, etc) over VOIP has vexed many people,myself included. I've kept a no-frills phone line for that very reason although I'd love to dump it. Some people have reported success with using a DSL filter between the device and phone line. It might be worth a try.

MAR

2008

We know it can be done because our local cable company offers phone service and fax machines work just fine.

OCT

2008

Just checked the MagicJack website that claims you can fax "sometimes". Did you try following their tips for getting it to work? They claim that you should turn your fax speed to the slowest speed and incrementaly increase the speed to find out what speed your connection will support. They also recomend turning off error correction. Did you try these steps? If not, I would be curious to find out if you get it to work doing these things.

NOV

2008

I have a brother 575.

It didnt work initially but I turned on the overseas mode. Or in some advanced machines, you can change the connection speed and make it the lowest possible.

It should work for you.

DEC

Simple solution as I have Majicjack and still love it! I use Callwave fax service that lets you SEND and RECEIVE e-mail via the internet, so no need for a traditional fax machine and problem fixed!

I've had my Majicjack for over a year now and love it and will gladly pay next years $20.

By the way congratulations on your one year anniversary in the rain and hope you have a productive and profitable 2009!

DEC

I have 1 Vonage line for my fax (it works) plus free long distance and reasonable international calls available (extra per minute) for $24.99 + extra fee's = $29.99 monthly.

Vonage is also important for my 911 calls because Vonage works while my computer is off, Magic Jack does not. I have kids, I need it to be simple and work!

I then added Magic Jack as a 2nd line for free long distance calls for $20.00 a year. We use both for home and office phones.

This keeps my cost much lower that my old ATT bill that averaged between $70.00 - $100.00 monthly.

Hope this helps!

Dan

I saw your comment, so I had to update my post. I went with Vonage as well. WHAT A GREAT SOLUTION! Works super with the fax, and it just plugs into the DSL connection. Anyone want to buy my MagicJack? Will be happy to sell it.

John Hokkanen

FEB

The funny thing is MagicJack is a VOIP system, but your using an old Bell technology of analog faxing. Why not use internet faxing, which is new-gen.... instead of using a new-gen phone and an old Bell Fax?

Just seems a bit odd to me... as there are quite a lot of on-line faxing websites that are quite cheap.

Relocation Professionals,

Actually, we're not using an old fax machine. We've got a brand new digital sender, so most of the time we scan the document and the sender renders it as a PDF file, and then emails it to the designated recipient. The problem is that not everyone is as high tech as we are, and a bunch of offices will only take faxes to their ancient fax machines. So....instead of pushing the email button, we push the fax button and send it out over the VOIP line. Hope that helps.

John H.

FEB

We use MagicJack for phone calls and Efax.com for our fax. We have 3 MagicJack units right now. One is our main line and that can be tranfered using our Panasonic Wireless 2 Line Phone System. The other phones all have a direct line and the main line on them. All phone calls are made on the MagicJack units and we have had no issues. We also use Efax.com for faxing and it allows all 3 users in my office to send and recieve a fax with out leaving the desk. I have a cell phone that I also use as a after hours line since that includes free calls after 7pm.

I love the MagicJack and just wish I tried the $39.99 a year ago. I was too busy listening to people that had problems to save myself a load of money. I have saved over $2,500 this year so far.

Ray Gambrill, CBA

Credit Executives

Ray,

MagicJack for phone calls is just fine. It worked well, though sometimes I seemed to get some echo. But all in all, it's a great value for voice lines.

I note that your posting indicated "we use efax.com for faxing." I am confident in saying that this is probably the case because your MagicJack won't serve up the faxes properly. If not, why not use it and avoid the per-page charges of efax.com? You're probably paying $10/month for the 1st 300 pages, plus 15 cents/page after that. The Vonage router seems to handle the fax protocols just fine for us, and so we use that. For incoming faxes, we use Packetel, which gives us unlimited incoming faxes each month for about $4. So, the money that we don't spend on efax.com (which we used to use, just like the MagicJack), we allocate towards the Vonage system. All in all, it works great. If you do a total cost of ownership by the year, your solution is probably a few bucks cheaper, but having the higher quality phone line was critical for us.

John H.

I have had mine about two weeks and it faxes fine but it won't receive any which is ok because I get them from a service. It won't always work with my old house phone but always works with the cordless. Since I don't have unlimited minutes it is great. I have it forwarded to me cell phone.

FEB

I was able to use my fax with the MagicJack by reducing the baud rate at which it sends. Here's a site that tells you how to do it on various machines. Mine is a Brother.

http://www.voipmechanic.com/faxssttingsbaud.htm

I still don't know if I can receive them, but I don't have a need to receive them at this point.

MAR

Simply, faxing is antiquated. Real estate professionals are one of the large remaining groups who believe they must have a fax machine - ridiculous. Anyone who can use email can "fax to scan" a document - in nearly the same amount of time if they are on the ball enough. I'm not 'green' but we use fully less than half of the paper we used to once we got rid of our fax. Especially when you need any kind of digital copy, faxing is slowing down all business - not speeding it up. I would even call it lazy. Creating a PDF is as easy as ever.

Here is a huge tip as well - if you have any kind of "all in one" that you use as a fax, turn it off when you are not printing or scanning - you drain inkjet cartridges up to 400% faster if your machine is turned on all the time.

Just my two cents.

Mick, Faxing is antiquated, but really paper is what is antiquated. If we were going to do it correctly, we'd eliminate the printing of the fax for signature as well. That's what I'd like to see, but I don't get to make the rules, and a lot of people still use fax machines. We have found it easier to be able to fax and it doesn't slow the wheels of commerce. Good tip on turning the fax machine off, though most of the modern machines go into sleep modes, don't they? We don't use inkjet (only laser) so I don't know.

John H.

MAR

Thanks Jarrod, I went to the site & lowered my speed & now can fax

with Magicjack.

MAR

Hi, thank you for the informative posts. I have A Brother mfs (love it) & magic jack
(love it). I can fax out sometimes w/ no problem & sometimes I get a "check readability" message. I cannot receive incoming faxes that I know of, and as a new job recruiter need this capability. I'm very cheap & do not want to get a landline just for faxing, so I will try out Packetel. Thanks!

JUL

I too work in Real Estate as a Virtual Assistant to a commercial real estate firm in Florida. I use Magic jack for all my phone but use Call Wave for my Fax. At $9.95 a month it has never failed me

AUG

Faxing with Magic Jack seems to be intermittent. I was with a different cable provider when it worked and now that I switched to another, it doesn't work. I tried lowering the baud rate and turning error correction off but still no luck. Other option to scan docs to pdf and fax or email but be careful as scanning with 150 dpi or higher can create a large file and most "efax" type providers have a limit of 3MB.

I use packetel for internet fax sending/receiving since they have a pretty good monthly plan (i.e. $3.95 mo) and 7cents per outgoing fax. I've given up on using MJ for faxing.

Note, you can use the forward feature in the MJ and forward calls to your internet fax number if you don't want to keep giving out a new fax number everytime you change service providers.

OCT

Thanks for the post. Laure I had problems with the Majicjack then I just plugged in the filter and all was well.

Great suggestion.

I use the faxing out side of Magic Jack but still can't get it to receive on a regular basis.

Leave a response…

Name:

Email:
(optional)

Comment:

What does the graphic say?