I've found on forums AND people I've met and know some very well who have tried Magic Jack (the latest no PC required version), and all have had problems sufficient to be very annoying and even had them stop using MJ, and they found the upsell buttons on set-up and subsequent support to be abysmal, never really fixing issues even after hours and days. On the other hand, the nearly identical (Magic Jack technology) NetTalk Duo seems to have more happy customers, so it seems MJ is NOT doing it right, but NetTalk is, for those I've spoken with. MJ and NetTalk seem fine for single or smaller households or for those not interested in many features that others offer, so I would say one service is not necessarily better than another. It depends upon what you want from the phone service.
After much research, we found Ooma to be the easiest to set-up and had a plethora of "premium" services that our household needed/wanted, as it seems the superior for larger households. The stinker is the upfront cost, but for what we were paying the phone company (for two lines) we got the money back by the 2nd month. Then it was using the phone as the family always had, but with a feature rich system for only $9.99 extra a month. The basic service provides call waiting a second telephone number and other "premium" features that cost a lot from the phone company but included at the basic level. However, the Premiere ($9.99) level offers features such as 2nd line, meaning that if one is on the phone, another person in your household can make a call. Completely separate accounts for each telephone number meaning that other phones don't have to ring and those people get their own answering services. Additional numbers beyond the third are $5 per month and if we do have to take in one more person who may need to move in with us, they can pay the $5 per month for their service (they don't want the job shops to call the cell number) and all supported by the current equipment. Ooma is the most sophisticated of the VoIP's I've researched and meets all our needs and wants while still not paying an extra penny for your call volume including Canada. I think the call limit is 5,000 minutes OUTBOUND per month (I don't think they have an inbound limit), a figure we have never come close to exceeding. There is a business rate for businesses that easily require more than the residential limit. 911 is set-up by the owner and once done all info is transmitted to dispatchers just as a line line should you call 911, so that really isn't an issue (had to call 911 once and the dispatch had our address, etc.) which is NOT the case with cell phones. Both the Telo and the handsets have easy, intuitive buttons to easily access voice messages (along with voice prompts) and other features and services. Our elderly mother easily access her voice messages by pressing one button on the hand unit and listening to the prompts pre-set to use the handset speaker so she never has to put the phone to her ears to navigate and hear messages.
Overall, Ooma was the only system capable of meeting our demanding feature rich needs at extremely low cost and very good reliability. Also, the call logs are always immediate and accurate with a variety of options to prevent unwanted calls (such as solicitors). I love being able to blacklist numbers. I would say that the Ooma hand unit batteries don't seem to last as long as it should, but that is the only complaint. The hand units have an Intercom system that we use extensively to contact one another in the house and it is easy joining a current call from any hand unit, even one that has been personalized (for that user only) not to be associated with a specific number, as well as receiving and making calls when others are using the phone (line 1). I do recommend it. I haven't even described other features we use and even more. We do have on standard line phone connected to the Ooma for convenience and it works well with our home network and we never notice a degradation of surfing internet experience when call are in progress, etc.
However, if I were living alone, and didn't want a feature rich experience, the NetTalk Duo (Magic Jack technology done right) seems to be the best choice. But if you have a household and want to keep your experience separate from others in the home and have all the "expensive" phone company features, with several phones as part of the system, then Ooma is easily the best for such situations.
Yes, best to get Ooma Telo at Costco, and the numbers seem to be too high associated with Dish, but I guess that is because you are provided the expensive Telo for free.
My two cents for what very little they are worth.
