Modem Can Go the Long-Distance

Ten cents a minute? Five cents a minute on Sundays? Free long distance on Fridays? Chances are you’ve heard pitches like these on television for the big long-distance carriers. How does the thought of free long-distance calling any time you want grab you? It’s possible using the Internet.

When you think about it, Internet telephone isn’t all that radical of an idea. You already know that connecting to the Internet is a local call for you (or no call at all if you’re connected to the Internet through the office network connection at your place of employment).

So if you can send your cousin in Spain an e-mail message for free, why can’t you send her a voice message for free too? And if you can communicate in real time with text characters using Internet Relay Chat (IRC), why can’t you communicate in real time with your voice? You can.

Now, don’t run out and cancel your long-distance phone service. The quality of Internet calls is far below what you’re accustomed to. And you need the right hardware and software--and probably a little patience--to make this all work right.

On the hardware side, you have to start with a full-duplex sound card. Do you remember how on some old speaker phones, if you started talking, you couldn’t hear what was going on at the other end? That’s because those old speaker phones were only half-duplex. Full-duplex means that sound can travel both directions simultaneously, just like it does on a regular telephone. Check your sound card’s documentation to make sure it’s full-duplex.

If you’re going to hear anything, you need speakers. Most of today’s multimedia computer systems include speakers; I wouldn’t recommend relying on your PC’s dinky built-in speaker for Internet telephony.

The other piece of equipment you’ll need, but may not already have, is a microphone. The good news is that just about any $20 or so PC microphone will do the trick.

A couple of companies have manufactured what are being billed as Internet telephones. Basically, these devices combine a cheap little speaker and a cheap little microphone into a plastic housing that looks like regular telephone, and run a two-plugged cable out the other end. One of the plugs goes where you’d normally plug in your regular speakers and the other plug goes in your sound card’s microphone jack.

If you never, ever plan to use real speakers, and you never, ever want to use your microphone for anything other than making free long-distance calls, maybe one of these Internet phones would be worth it for you. However, if you stick with regular speakers and a PC microphone, you’ll be able to take advantage of all the other uses this equipment provides you too.

*

Once you have all the right hardware, the next thing you need is software.

Imagine for a moment a world where you could make telephone calls only to people whose phones were the same brand as yours. You don’t have to worry about this with regular telephone service, which is based on common standards, but such is not the case with Internet telephony.

To make a free long-distance call to your cousin in Spain, your cousin has to use the same software as you do. The obvious choices are NetMeeting, which is part of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer suite, and Netscape Conference (formerly called CoolTalk), which is part of Netscape’s Communicator suite of Internet tools. Both can be downloaded from the companies’ Web sites (https://www.microsoft.com and https://www.netscape.com).

There are other publishers of Internet telephony software out there. In fact, you can probably find at least a couple of titles at your local software store. However, as I already mentioned, the person at the other end of the call has to be using the same software.

Even if you get all the pieces in place, there’s still a down side--in fact, a couple of them.

For starters, you can’t just dial an Internet phone and have the other party’s computer ring at the other end. Both users have to already be connected to the Internet to negotiate the telephone connection. That means you usually have to plan your free calls ahead of time.

A New Jersey-based firm called IDT is hoping to change this with a service called Net2Phone (https://www.net2phone.com). Using Net2Phone’s virtual handset on screen and your Internet connection, you place the call using the Internet but the receiving party can answer the call the old-fashioned way--by using a regular telephone. You buy blocks of time upfront in amounts of $25, $50 or $100.

As you place calls, your PC dials IDT’s toll-free number and routes your call across the country, or the globe, from the Internet to a local routing center. The savings aren’t nearly as good as with pure Internet calls, but they can still be significant, especially if you’re calling overseas.

Domestic calls using Net2Phone cost 10 cents a minute and international rates vary according to country: A call to France costs 25 cents a minute and a call to Canada sets you back 13 cents a minute.

*

Earlier this year, however, IDT was forced to pay a penalty of $250,000 and give refunds to some of its 150,000 customers in a settlement related to the company’s advertising and billing practices. Whether you use IDT or another company for Internet telephony, watch your credit card bills. Lack of regulation means consumers need to watch out for themselves.

No matter what kind of software or service you use, you’re not going to get near the sound quality you get during a regular telephone call. Internet calls make quite a few hops and jumps through various computers as they make their way around the world; they also have to share bandwidth with all that other data bouncing around the Internet. In short, you’re likely to get more snaps, crackles and pops than a bowl of Rice Krispies.

Right now, Internet telephony is a valuable tool for companies to use on their intranets (high-speed internal networks based on Internet technology). For the home user, it still hasn’t passed the hobbyist level. But if you’re interested in trying it out and you know someone somewhere else who is willing to experiment with you, give it a try. Getting something for nothing can be great fun.

*

Kim Komando is a TV host, syndicated talk radio host, author and entrepreneur. You can visit Kim on the Internet at https://www.komando.com or e-mail her at komando@komando.com