NEW Internet products seem to be launched every week, but one of the most genuinely exciting innovations is the development of Internet phone software. It allows users equipped with sound cards to talk in real time to other users anywhere in the world - all for the price of a local call.
This is how it works you want to talk to your friend in Alaska or Australia, so at a pre arranged time you log on and run your phone software. Then you select your friend's address from the menu and wait for the machine to dial, or you log on to a server and double click your friend's name. In seconds you're chatting away with the aid of a microphone and headphones. The growing sophistication of applications such as VocalTec's Internet Phone (IPhone) for PC users (a Macintosh version is due soon) and NetPhone for the Mac is turning the combination of computer and Internet connection into a viable alternative to the phone for the kind of long distance calls that would otherwise be too costly.
The software works by using voice compression and encoding technology, voice packet reconstruction and delay mechanisms to enable users to enjoy real time conversations. All you need is the phone software, a TCP/IP Internet connection and a Windows compatible audio device with microphone and speaker. (Macs usually come with built in sound, though you'll need to install Apple's Sound Manager if you're not using System 7.5). IPhone also requires a 4865X PC with 25MHZ and 8MB RAM.
Quality varies
Most users will be operating in half duplex mode. This is like using a CB radio, where you speak first, then listen. IPhone supports full duplex (simultaneous speaking and listening, like a real phone) but you'll need to check whether your machine can handle it. In any case, Net traffic can superimpose significant transmission delays when this happens, full duplex is pretty illusory.
The sound quality can also vary substantially I've had some very clear conversations with people in San Francisco and other far flung places, but I've also had sessions where it was impossible to make anything out. Much depends on the traffic on the Net, available bandwidth or how busy the dedicated servers are. IPhone used to piggyback on the IRC channels until angry IRC users forced them off for clogging up the system; now they have 16 of their own dedicated servers, and by all accounts they need a lot more to satisfy the demand.
There are two ways you can talk to people, though again this depends on the software. With NetPhone, you can call somebody directly, assuming they are online, by punching in their host name or IP address (which can also be saved as a menu item) or you can log on to one of the NetPub servers and talk to whoever is online. With IPhone you must log on to a server first and then access somebody through a public or private topic channel.
"Private topics" are "unlisted", and can only be accessed by the users who know about them, so you can conduct your conversations quietly, without getting calls from all the other users online.
Nor is the technology restricted to computer to computer connections. The Free World Dialup project, launched at the end of 1995, is an experimental volunteer project designed to allow Internet connected PCs' users to dial standard phone customers anywhere in the world and speak with them without long distance charges.
Running on a Windows platform, FwD merges the Internet software such as IPhone and the conventional telephone service. Very much in the democratic, cooperative tradition of the Net, the free service is specifically aimed at expatriates anxious to keep in touch with family and friends overseas. FWD is restricted to non commercial, lawful use and is currently looking for volunteers.
How do phone companies feel about this alternative to traditional telephones, with its potential threat of decreased revenues from long distance calls? "We're following these new developments with interest," a Telecom Eireann spokesman said, adding that the technology didn't currently compete with existing services.
This may be true today, but what about two years from now? Is a company really going to use traditional phone connections if there are huge cost savings to be "made by using the Net? I came across one semi retired business man living in Bermuda who regularly talks to his partners in Toronto. "On average I spend about 12 hours per month talking to my partners in Toronto therefore my savings by using IPhone are approximately $1,000 per month."
Social benefits
Whatever about potential savings for business users, the real benefits are for the kind of social personal communication that phone company prices tend to discourage. Lloyd Stone, who runs an Internet cafe in Ontario, reports that he has "several customers who use it on a regular basis to pre arrange a time to meet relatives in distant places to enjoy an hour of chat". And I spoke to several people who make daily calls to Moscow, Melbourne and Tokyo. I also know of one Irish businessman whose decision to spend a year in the States was made considerably easier by the fact that he could talk to his family every day on the Net.
The level of excitement surrounding these real time audio developments can be gauged by VocalTec's recent release of 2.5 million shares expected to sell for between $16-18 each. The much more shadowy DigiPhone produced by Camelot also seems toe excite Wall Street every time it issues a new press release, even though the product itself is untested, and pretty oddly for an Internet product not available for downloading from the Net.
We keep hearing about how information technology will alters the way in which we encounter each other, and having the Net flung at us as if we can hardly survive without it. But the true advances are always the retrogressive ones back to the days of the penny post with email, and now real people talking to real people, and still having some money left for a packet of cigarettes and a pint this is the kind of thing that could give the Net a good name.