My husband has magic jack for his business line, and we gave magic jack to my dad for his home phone because he only had a cell, it doesn't work well in his house and I felt bad when it was cold and he would be sitting outside on his patio to talk to us. First, you do have to have a computer on for it to work, but you can let the computer go I to "sleep" mode and it will "wake up" if a call comes in. My husband hooked up a good quality cordless phone to his for work, and he has a handset in the office on his desk, a handset in the office on our business partner's desk, and a third handset in the shop. He has no problem making or receiving calls with the magic jack and 3 cordless phone set up in a commercial building. He also has the option to forward those calls to his cell if he is going to be out. My dad doesn't keep his computer on and in sleep mode, but the magic jack still gets voicemail for him when he doesn't have it turned on, so when he does turn the computer on he gets email that there are messages, and I believe a text interpretation of the voicemail if he doesn't have time to dial in and listen. Some things don't translate well, it depends in the message leaver's voice, enunciation etc. One thing that my husband finds convenient is that when we travel he can take the magic jack with us and anyplace that there is wifi - McDonalds, hotel, racetracks that we are working/racing at he can set up a laptop, hook up magic jack and make and receive calls like we are at home/work, we aren't being charged for calls at the hotel or using cell minutes....so for us it has been great. When you buy the unit for $39.95 it includes the first year of service, either online, by 800#, at Walmart, Walgreens, CVS etc...they are all the same. When you call to set up your phone number they will offer you an additional svc....if I remember correctly when I set up my dad's, it was something like for "29.95 for 3 additional years of svc" so I did it for my dad, not sure if my husband bought that for his office or not.
