Free Reign - Industry Trend or Event

Home Office Computing, Dec, 2000 by Douglas Gantenbein

How to communicate for nothing (or next to it)

SOME MIGHT CALL HOWARD HERSH, AN advertising and marketing consultant in Spring Valley, N.Y., a cheapskate. But he won't mind, as he's mastered what many other people are just finding out: You can run many facets of your home-based business for flee. In Hersh's case, it's free e-mail and Internet access. A former America Online subscriber, Hersh now uses MiracleNet to send his daily e-mails, check weather and news, and surf the Web for free.

Nationwide, millions of people like Hersh are finding the Internet can be a gateway to communications freebies--most of which use the radio broadcast model, beaming advertising at you in exchange for the services they offer. For the savvy home-based worker, it's simply a case of sampling what's available and figuring out whether it's appropriate for your business needs.

Free Internet Access and E-Mail The pioneers of Web giveaways were free Internet service providers. The biggest is Juno (800-TRY-JUNO, www.juno.com), which claims to be the second-largest dial-up ISP after AOL.

The service's model is fairly well known: Using proprietary Juno software, users get free Net access and e-mail. Every online session launches at a home page that features a fair amount of advertising from companies ranging from Jenny Craig to Bank of America.

"Juno really is a full-service site" claims company spokesperson Gary Baker. "It's about the only place where you can start with a full service, then move up to high speed Internet access without having to change your e-mail address" Juno also offers paid accounts--for $9.95 a month you get improved access, technical support, and fewer ads.

Considering you'll want these necessities for your home-based business, it's best to think of free ISPs as backups in case something happens to your primary paid account. NetZero (www.netzero.com) and iFreedom.com offer similar services.

Free Voice Mail Telephone company voice mail is a powerful and reliable service, but it's expensive--up to $10 a month or more. That's an expense JoAnna Blanding-Koskinen, a graphic designer in Santa Rosa, Calif., decided she could do without.

So she signed up with eVoice (800-438-3864, www. evoice.com), a free provider that works like any other voice-mail system. If Blanding-Koskinen is out or can't get to the phone, her callers are automatically transferred to her voice mailbox. As a subscriber, Blanding-Koskinen calls a toll-free number, enters a PIN code, and listens to her voice messages (which she can also download from eVoice's Web site).

There's a catch, of course: Before she gets to hear her voice mail, she has to listen to a 15-second advertisement. But Blanding-Koskinen doesn't find that the quarter-minute pitch gets in the way of doing business. "It goes by quickly" she says. "And it's targeted at me [subscribers give eVoice some demographic information], so sometimes it's information I can even use."

Call Wave (www.callwave.com) offers a similar service for individuals who find their voice line tied up while they're online. It offers a free Internet answering machine--software that works with your local carrier's "call forward when busy" feature. When a call comes in while you're online, your caller can leave a message, which Call Wave then sends (along with a commercial) to your Web browser. Simply click on the message to listen to it through your PC speakers. This can be a great addition to your primary voice mailbox, particularly if you don't have a dedicated data line.

Free Phone Service Of course, perhaps the ultimate dream of free communication is gratis long-distance calling. You want it? You got it: PhoneFree.com and Net2Phone (800-438-8879, www. net2phone.com) among others, are adapting the free ISP model to Internet telephony. Subscribers make calls from their PCs to any domestic phone without incurring any charges.

The only drawback is that the call quality is closer to that of a cell phone--and not a top-of-the--line one--than a regular corded phone. But for a small or start-up business counting nickels, cutting the cost of even a few calls per month can add to the bottom line.

For another toll-free phone service option, Landover, Md.-based BroadPoint Communications Inc. (301-306-3085, www.broadpoint.com) recently introduced a long-distance calling service dubbed FreeWay. To get free phone time, subscribers call a toll-free number, enter their private PIN, then listen to a series of 15-second advertisements. For each ad heard, the subscriber gets 2 minutes of free calling time. It's a handy way to make free calls when traveling, but of course isn't the quickest way to take care of business.

Free Unified Messaging Several companies are now offering free unified messaging services--Web sites that give you all of your voice mail, e-mail, and faxes for free. ThinkLink (415-252-6200, www. thinklink.com) offers a service that Susannah D'Oench swears by.

D'Oench, a telecommuter for a Silicon Valley Web site, uses ThinkLink to capture messages and faxes when she's traveling or using her single home phone line to surf the Web. "ThinkLink has an e-pager that pops up onscreen when a message is waiting," she says. "I just click on it to listen. If I'm waiting for an important e-mail, I don't have to sit by the computer--I can drive to a meeting and check voice mail for it. If it's a short one, ThinkLink reads it to me, or I can have it faxed to the nearest fax machine. It's really neat." D'Oench also uses ThinkLink's fee-based long-distance calling, a nickel-a-minute service that simplifies her life by billing directly to a credit card.