Arthur C. Clarke once wrote that the future will be characterized by free, high-quality communication around the world. He was originally talking about satellite telephony, but it seems his predictions have come to pass, albeit using a few more wires.
MagicJack is a phone company that charges about $20 a year for unlimited local and long distance calling. You can’t call Japan, but you can call Grandma. That’s right, peeps. That’s $20 a year, not $20 a month or $20 a minute. And, if you buy the dongle for $40, you get the first year free.
Granted you do need a PC — a Mac version is coming very soon, said the CEO Dan Borislow — but once you plug it in, it just starts to work. It works using a mixture of POTS gateways and VOIP and brings a keypad right up on your screen. Just dial a number and make a call. You’ve got your own phone number and — this is the coolest part — the dongle has a standard telephone jack in it. You just plug in a regular phone and you’re calling your parole officer from what looks like trailer park in New Jersey when you’re really in Utah, meeting a man about a job.
The dongle is available now.
UPDATE – It seems that this post has been hijacked by Amway-esque resellers who are essentially astroturfing us. I recommend NOT PURCHASING A MAGICJACK BASED ON THIS POST and to do independent research elsewhere.
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