Magic For A Home Studio?

OK, who hasn't seen the adds for Magic Jack, where they tell you that you can get phone service for $19.95 a year. For many months my husband and I would see that and say "right!". Sounds too good to be true, probably is. But wait..... after downsizing from our enormous lan line bill last year, we decided to try it at least so we could use the fax part of our fax/printer/scanner. If it didn't work, it wasn't a huge loss.

My husband, who is an engineer and put together my studio, hooked up the Magic Jack through our PC. As it turns out, Magic Jack is an excellent phone patch! I have used it  on projects where clients have been able to be a part of my voice over recording session. They could listen in and hear playback through the board.  It also enables phone interviews with decent clarity because it can feed right into my Adobe Audition recording software. I did have one issue calling into a conference call, but that could have also been a problem on the client's end.  I don't know enough about it to say that it would work well for everyone, but it was an extremely cheap alternative to a phone patch for me...oh and it works perfectly with our fax (the original reason for buying it!). I love it when something solves one problem...and then solves another one you weren't even expecting. I had to share.