Call it Internet Bell - software publishers forming Internet telephone network - Product Announcement

Home Office Computing, August, 1995 by Mike Hogan

Cheap chitchat's a reality at last, now that software publishers have started laying the groundwork for an Internet telephone network. Through it, phone calls will cost about a buck an hour, whether you're calling Boston from Brooklyn or Paris from Pittsburgh.

Two of the first participants are VocalTec of Northvale, New Jersey, and Electric Magic of San Francisco. For less than $60 a copy, you can get VocalTec's Internet Phone software for Windows or Electric Magic's Net Phone software for the Macintosh and make real-time phone calls to similarly equipped I-way riders. In addition to the software and an Internet account, you need at least a 486 PC or Mac IIsi equipped with a sound card, microphone and speakers, and a fax/modem with a minimum speed of 14.4Kbps. If you just gotta cradle, VocalTec also sells Internet Phone bundled with a $349 DSP-based sound card with speakerphone and handset.

Currently, Internet calls sound only as good as your computer's speakers and mike. But because they travel over an unregulated I-way, these calls lack the nine kinds of taxes and assessments applied to regular calls. The dollar savings could be significant, especially if you do business overseas where phone tariffs are much higher.

Several hundred thousand copies of Internet Phone have been downloaded from the Internet already, and a coupon for a free copy of the software is included with Motorola's Information Systems Groups Power Class 28.8Kbps modems. Cirrus Logic is bundling it with the audio and modem chipsets it sells to PC sound card and systems manufacturers. The program includes such features as caller ID and quick-dial buttons. Future versions, according to VocalTec president and CEO Elon Ganor, are scheduled to have "everything you can get with a telephone."

The only problem is: Who ya gonna call? The network is just getting rolling, and there's no single software standard, let alone a yellow pages. But VocalTec, Electric Magic, and their newly formed user groups are coordinating participating Internet server operators to build online directories. Until then, you and your business partners, suppliers, or clients can agree to get the same software and arrange specific times to call each other. It's as cheap as sending email but with the immediacy and interactivity of a phone call.