“Of course the lesson learned is that in the Internet age, the harder a company works to stifle criticism, the more attention that criticism gets. The better path is perhaps to listen to what your customers are saying about your business practices, and change them where possible if you value your customers,” Bode writes.

The legal documents are here:

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/23/magicjack-legal-docu.html

Imagine my surprise — and pleasure — when MagicJack called me to discuss the problem. After some back and forth, the MagicJack representative recommend that I purchase a powered USB hub.

I purchased the StarTech ST4200USB 4 Port USB 2.0 Hub from Newegg for $28.99 plus $14.55 shipping and handling for a total of $43.54.

That’s a lot of money to support a service that costs $20 per year, but the net price remains far below what my phone bill would be without MagicJack.

Today, we had a hiccup in service, but I went to the MagicJack website, downloaded the latest update, and the problem was solved.

The problem, however, demonstrated why MagicJack gets such poor ratings for technical service. The error message said that I needed to plug MagicJack into a USB jack, but the actual problem was that the update had failed.

Since service failed shortly after (but not immediately after) an automatic update, this was not too difficult a diagnosis, but I would not recommend this product to anyone who does not know how to troubleshoot their own PC and internet connection. Given a certain level of technical proficiency, MagicJack can save you a lot of money.

The company is preparing to add femtocell to its service line. If you have a cell phone, check it out.