I used Magic Jack for a while as a second line but cannot port Canadian number to MagicJack so I switched to OOMA. Love it.
Friend's son took MagicJack travelling through Europe - could call home and to all his friends from anywhere in europe he could get internet on his laptop.
You missed my point. If you and the box are in Nairobi, you can't make calls from anywhere in Canada because you are not in Canada.
I could make no-cost calls TO anywhere in Canada
That is true in many countries. But in some countries you'd need to plug it into a router with VPN capability.
A Magicjack plugged into a laptop with VPN would also work.
VOIP on Google Voice on the Obi devices has been tested in a lot of countries. For some reason it did not work in Egypt. The problem with Google Voice is that they won't let you sign up unless you are in the U.S.. So people are using VPN to get around this.
Ironically, the free GV/Obi service is much more full featured than even Ooma Premier, and about 1/10th the price ($1.25 per month for E911 service). I have a MagicJack as well, but the QOS is not as good. And unlike the Ooma and Obi device there is no voice packet prioritization option on MajicJack. On the Ooma and the Obi 202 (and Vonage) you can plug the their box into your broadband modem, and then your wireless router into their box. This theoretically improves QOS but it affects your broadband speeds. Or you can plug the Ooma or Obi box into the router, which loses you the voice prioritization but does not affect your broadband speeds. I did the latter.
The appeal of MagicJack was that you could plug it into a router or into a USB port. But with Google Voice there is no need for a USB device to make calls from the computer, though you can't connect a standard telephone set.
The big attraction of Ooma, in my mind, is that it's a single integrated solution for hardware and service. For a one time cost of about $120, and about $5 in taxes and fees per month you replace a $30+ landline very easily.
With Google Voice and the Obi the user has to buy the hardware, set up the service, do the porting (which is a two step process if it's from a landline). The upside of the Obi/Google Voice solution is that it's MUCH less expensive and has features that are lacking on the Ooma Basic service, and some are lacking even on Ooma Premier.
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