Tell me about "magic jack"...

And no, this isn't about a sex toy.

I'm getting extremely ticked at AT&T and since I need a land line for at least a few more months, I'm assuming my only alternate is magic jack? (If you have other suggestions/alternatives to AT&T, let me know.)

For the last several months AT&T has been jerking me around, first it was being charged for a long distance call I never made and now, today, my phone bill jumped $2.00. Yeah, I know, it's not a lot, but that is what this thing has been about. Stupid little charges here and there on my phone bill that I'm assuming they believe I will not notice/mind paying. Calling customer service has gotten me nowhere.

You still need interent service.

That's all I can help with.

All I can recommend is Skype. For $4 a month UNLIMITED calling anywhere in north america. And it can be used on smart phones, so if you have access to free wifi or a good data plan, you basically have unlimited calling anywhere!

What is your definition of "land line"?
A Voice Over IP, like Skype or Magic Jack is not really a land line.
What do you plan to do with this "land line" that you could not do with a cell phone?

I set up magic jack on my wife's laptop because of the same issues you are talking about. It worked great for the last 3/4 months. My wife started having issues with the computer that I think were unrelated and she uninstalled it. the computer finally crapped out while she was loading the 14 Sims game disks that she insists on playing in it and it turns out the NVidia has a class-action lawsuit against it for GPU failures on her model (Dell, but also affecting HP and Apple) computer.

In a nutshell, it worked fine. Did it have anything to do with the untimely death of a 2 year-old laptop? I think not, but use at your own risk.

Partly, I was curious as to how M-J worked, since there would have to be "dial tone" wouldn't there?

Basically, I need my current number for those occasions when my boss (claims? she can get me on my cellphone, and she therefore) needs my "backup" number.

integraguy wrote: Basically, I need my current number for those occasions when my boss (claims? she can get me on my cellphone, and she therefore) needs my "backup" number.

Had a boss do that once, I asked them where I could submit my phone bill for re-imbursement since I was only keeping the landline for their needs. Amazing how quickly their story will change then.

I've used google voice with my laptop. It worked great, but confused a few people since it looked like I was calling from California. :)

You can get a pager for about $13 a month. That's got to be cheaper than what ever you're paying for a land line.

Edit. They can leave a number and you can call them back on your cell. They also work just about everywhere even when there isn't any cell service.

Just do what Joey says and use google voice. Set up a free google number to forward to your cell phone, and it will be like two phones in one. Tell boss the google number is your home phone, and set it to only ring your cell at night, when you're usually home.