Jump to content
Cruise Critic Community

Has anyone use a magicjack

dainew

By dainew,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

Recommended Posts

wanderlust402

wanderlust402

Posted
Posted
Has anyone tried use magicjack with there computer on the cruise and if so how did it do.

 

Have I used a magicjack? Yes

On a cruise? No

Do I plan to? No

 

Magicjack is great for when my wife is out of town in a hotel with free internet as it is a great way for us to keep in touch without spending money on long distance. Even in a hotel though, the sound quality can degrade based on the time of day if there are too many people using the internet at the hotel.

 

Based on everything I have heard about slowness of sending email on the ship, I am assuming that it is a low bandwidth situation that would not be conducive to using a voice over internet protocol device like magicjack.

 

Furthermore, with as expensive as internet minutes are, I am just telling my friends and family that I will be outside their communications circle while I am gone.

 

If you really need to stay in touch for business reasons, I would plan on using the phones on the ship or the cell phone service from the ship. Not affordable, but at least designed for a voice communication.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
dustyroad

dustyroad

Posted
Posted

i dont know about using one on a ship, but my brother in louisiana has one and it is horrible. he always cuts out and we lose him altogether. i dont know how it works anywhere else, but for him i wish he would get the mothballs out of the wallet and use a real phone for everyday use.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
steveaaaaa

steveaaaaa

Posted
Posted
No - the bandwidth on the ship is very low, and you would not have a decent voice connection.

 

If you must talk on the phone while at sea, use your cell phone. Rates are about $2.49 a minute.

 

So you never tried it,yet you post details about how it would work?:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

 

OP, I have tried it on a ship as well as my sister.

It works great in non peak hours.If you use it during the early morning before 6am its great,it seems the later in the day you go the worse it gets.I would assume as more usage on the system itself takes away from its quality.Also mid cruise is better.The first 24 hours were poor and the last 10 hours of the cruise it was poor also.

 

Steve

Link to comment
Share on other sites
old sole

old sole

Posted
Posted

We used ours in the middle of the Pacific on Carnival Spirit to Hawaii. Other than the few times the ship was "between satellites" and didn't have internet access it worked great. We also used it on Carnival Glory on a W. Caribbean trip. Glory doesn't yet have ship-wide wi-fi, so had to leave our cabin and go to a public area, but from there had no issues.

 

Magic Jack calls can have some dropped words, even at home. We didn't have any more trouble on the ship than anywhere else.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
*Mach*

*Mach*

Posted
Posted
No - the bandwidth on the ship is very low, and you would not have a decent voice connection.

 

If you must talk on the phone while at sea, use your cell phone. Rates are about $2.49 a minute.

 

 

The bandwidth on board is improving. On the Dream there's 2.4 megs of bandwidth available for passenger access. I was able to get a download speed of 115 k... not too shabby...

In the case of the MagicJack, a number of ports have to be open for reliable communication... TCP ports 80 and 443 plus UDP ports 5060, 5070 and 10000-65535. Most of the IT folks on the ships have blocked many of these ports, with the exception of 80 and have made the MagicJack useless...

:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Traveler353

Traveler353

Posted
Posted
The bandwidth on board is improving. On the Dream there's 2.4 megs of bandwidth available for passenger access. I was able to get a download speed of 115 k... not too shabby...

 

In the case of the MagicJack, a number of ports have to be open for reliable communication... TCP ports 80 and 443 plus UDP ports 5060, 5070 and 10000-65535. Most of the IT folks on the ships have blocked many of these ports, with the exception of 80 and have made the MagicJack useless...

 

:)

 

Mach:There you go, talking that darn foreign language again.:D

Link to comment
Share on other sites
*Mach*

*Mach*

Posted
Posted
Mach:There you go, talking that darn foreign language again.:D

 

 

Hehehee... I just called a friend on the Splendor and she confirmed that many, if not most of the IT folks have blocked ports. Others have yet to take any action and the percentage of MagicJack users appears very low...

:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
*Mach*

*Mach*

Posted
Posted
That's a good question......I see it's worked for some.... I actually have one and works great here....looks like I'll have to take it on the Dream just to check it out. :D

 

 

If they haven't blocked the ports it should work well... plenty of bandwidth especially early in the AM...

The guy who manages the internet café was pretty unresponsive when I asked about they system so I don't know what they've done and what they haven't...

:rolleyes:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
ronrythm

ronrythm

Posted
Posted
I was thinking the same thing, it all sounded Greek to me!:confused:
GEEK! As in IT geek. And proud of it.

 

Just a reminder that you have to have your own laptop to use magic jacks onboard as you can't get to the computers in the internet cafe physically, so you can't plug in.

 

Enjoy

Ron

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing
  • Forum Jump
    • Categories
      • Welcome to Cruise Critic
      • New Cruisers
      • Cruise Lines “A – O”
      • Cruise Lines “P – Z”
      • River Cruising
      • ROLL CALLS
      • Cruise Critic News & Features
      • Digital Photography & Cruise Technology
      • Special Interest Cruising
      • Cruise Discussion Topics
      • UK Cruising
      • Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
      • Canadian Cruisers
      • North American Homeports
      • Ports of Call
      • Cruise Conversations
×
×
  • Create New...