[asterisk-biz] magicjack?

[Trixter aka Bret McDanel]

On Fri, 2010-02-26 at 23:31 -0700, Steve Murphy wrote:
> My parents-n-law presented me with an advertisement for
> www.magicJack.com,
> wherein you get a free usb to FXS connector, and you get FREE local
> and Long Distance,
> FREE telephone number, FREE International calling, FREE Direct. asst,
> Call Waiting, 
> CallerID, VM, 3-way calling... "Never pay a monthly phone bill again",
> and so on.
> 
> What's the catch? How are they making money? Anybody know?


they limit to 20x the average usage which works out to about 2000
minutes a month.  more than enough for many, less than enough for
some.  

They modified the nonce that is used so you have to use their softphone
(sjphone based, which they own) and their dongle (tigerjet based which
they own) and they redirect some conference numbers to ymax CLEC numbers
(which they own).  They display ads in their softphone, presumably for
money although I have no proof advertisers pay for placement to a
captive audience.

A clever person can figure out the nonce modification, as proof I offer
my blog (shameless plug :)
http://www.0xdecafbad.com/2009/08/magic-jack-sip-auth-proxy/


You still need to use other tools which are available in many places if
you google around to get the sip credentials.


In short, they own most aspects of the calling cycle, the average usage
is about 120 minutes a month, and that $1.70/mo they charge ($20/year +
$20 for the adapter which they get several dollars profit from) works
out to $0.008/min coupled with the adapter profit, advertising profit
and really high international rates it becomes profitable in volume.
Blocking high cost destination numbers further ensures their profit.

-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
pgp key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x8AE5C721