At 500,000-plus subscribers, YMax would vault ahead of every pure-play VoIP provider, save Vonage, currently the No. 1pure-play provider with roughly 2.6 million subscribers. YMax will know whether its customers will renew their subscriptions starting in January and February of 2009, a year after the MagicJack began to roll out to a large audience, Borislow said.

Launched last year, the MagicJack plugs into a computer’s USB port and features an RJ11 jack for connecting a traditional home phone. The service supports caller ID, voicemail, voicemail-to-email and call forwarding.

The device works when the computer is on and will forward inbound calls to a cellphone if the computer is off.

The company’s hook is super-low-cost calling. After the first year is up, it costs $20 for a full year of nationwide, all-you-can-dial calling.

“We originally thought that business travelers would use this, but what we’ve found is that in these economic times, people are desperate to get rid of their landline phone,” Borislow said. The most MagicJacks have been sold in Florida and California, respectively, where economic times are tough, he added.

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