With ‘Net Telephony,’ Long-Distance Talk Is Cheap, Even Free
You can’t turn on a TV these days without hearing about cheap long-distance rates--10 cents a minute, 7 cents a minute, even 5 cents a minute. But, thanks to “Internet telephony,” talk can be even cheaper. It can even be free.
Net2Phone, Dialpad.com, Firetalk and several other companies offer services that allow you to make free calls from one computer to another. To do so, both parties must be sitting at their computer, running the appropriate software and be connected to the Internet. Unless you buy a special headset, you speak into your PC’s microphone and hear the other party through your speakers. The calls are transmitted through the Internet instead of the usual telephone company lines, and the quality varies from relatively good to downright terrible.
Still, there are some advantages. For one thing, you can surf the Net and talk on the phone on a single telephone line, which can be a blessing if you have kids at home. We have three phone lines but, with two teenage kids, there are times when I have to resort to my cell phone to make calls from home.
Speaking of teens and talking, my kids love to chat with two or more friends at a time, and now they can do it for free using Firetalk (https://www.firetalk.com). Like Net2Phone, Firetalk allows you to make free PC-to-PC calls, but you can have up to 20 people on a call. It’s easy to set up and the quality of the calls is quite good. I tested it from my laptop, using a regular phone line and a 56K modem to connect to the Internet, and was impressed.
The service, which is also aimed at business users, lets you conduct “Web tours” while you’re talking. One person can take everyone on the call on a tour of their favorite Web sites merely by surfing while the others watch. Most desktop presentation programs--including Microsoft PowerPoint--allow users to post presentations to a Web site, which makes it possible to use this feature to make presentations during remote meetings.
Aside from uneven quality, the major problem with PC phone systems is that both parties need to be at the computer, which makes them impractical for calling most people. That’s why Net2Phone and Dialpad.com are letting PC users call regular telephones.
Net2Phone lets users call any phone in the U.S. for a penny a minute, which is cheap even in today’s highly competitive long-distance market. It’s especially cheap for people calling the U.S. from abroad where it can easily cost more than $1 a minute. The quality of the calls is quite spotty. Because the call is handled via the Internet, the quality depends not only on your Internet connection, but also on Internet traffic anywhere along the route. I made some calls that sounded almost as good as a regular phone and others that were totally unintelligible. You can also use the service to place international calls at very attractive rates.
I have two complaints about Net2Phone. First, you have to buy time in $25 increments, which strikes me as an expensive way to get started, especially if you’re not sure you’ll like the service. You can, however, try it out for free by placing toll-free (800 and 888) calls. My other complaint is their poor customer service. They have a toll-free support line, but every time I called I had to wait on hold for at least 10 minutes. In three cases, the operator couldn’t answer a basic question and offered to connect me to “tech support.” After another 15 minutes on hold I hung up. This is not a way to run a phone company.
Net2Phone also offers a regular phone-to-phone calling card with rates starting at 4.9 cents a minute for calls within the U.S. when you call via a local access number, or 7.9 cents a minute when using the company’s 800 number. International rates vary but are typically a little lower than other long-distance services.
If you don’t mind annoying advertising, Windows users can make free phone calls directly from Dialpad.com’s Web site. You have to register, but there’s no need to enter a credit card because there is no charge to use it. The service is exceptionally easy to use, and the quality is pretty good. Unlike Net2Phone and other products, you don’t have to download any special software. A Java application lets you dial the phone directly from the company’s Web site.
You can’t call overseas but people in other countries can call the U.S. for free. Unlike some free long-distance services, they don’t make you listen to ads when you place calls, but they do pop a banner on the screen that occasionally pops into the foreground even when visiting other Web sites. Still, the price is right and the user interface is superb.
College students, people calling from outside the U.S., and anyone else willing to go through some extra effort to save a little money, may find these services useful. But for the rest of us, the plain old telephone system is still a lot more convenient.
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Technology reports by Lawrence J. Magid can be heard at 2:10 p.m. weekdays on the KNX (1070) Technology Hour. He can be reached at larry.magid@latimes.com. His Web site is https://www.larrysworld.com.