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Kilen Mathews Special to the Middle East Times Hate the phone company? Don't worry unless they move to embrace the changing world of telecommunications you'll be able to take your business elsewhere. The 'phone company' is not well-loved in most places and Arento (Egyptian National Telephone Organization) is no exception. On the street you can hear people complaining about the phone company's policies and rates. Plus, of course, there are the ongoing complaints about how long it takes to get a phone line and the limitations on getting more than one private line. To be fair, Arento is making great strides in modernizing its systems. The implementation of the expansion of the mobile phone network has been relatively successful. It is still too expensive to become a mass-market item for most people, but we hear rumblings that the rates will be lowered. At CAINET 97, Egypt's second annual National Internet Conference and Exhibition, Arento came under heavy attack on virtually every front. International consultants and speakers, one after the other, echoed the same line: "The phone company has to lower charges" for Egypt to really move ahead in Internet services development. Whether Arento likes it or not, there's no stopping the Internet. The ever-invasive and ubiquitous Internet has now found a way to become a major player in world telephone communications. Now you can use the Internet to make overseas calls for a fraction of the direct cost. And if you are using the Internet, you are probably tying up a phone line while you are on-line anyway so you might as well make a few calls while you surf and browse. There are several versions of Internet telephony: *Computer to computer *Computer to phone *Phone to phone How do you call a toll-free number in the States (1-800 or 1-888)? From Egypt, you don't not for free anyway. You can use a telephone credit card and pay for the call plus a service charge in many cases. That's nice, call a toll free number and pay... extra. No more. Computer-to-computer voice communications over the Internet has been working well for a while now. In the beginning, about two years ago, the problem was that if you used one software program and someone else chose another, you couldn't talk to each other. This incompatibility problem is disappearing now as systems become more generic and work with more and more other programs. Systems such as Phonefree support their own system as well as others. If you go to the web site and check who's on-line, you'll find users of several different Internet telephone programs talking to each other. The catch is finding the people you want to talk to. The good news is it's getting easier every day. More and more directories that function like online telephone books are appearing. These keep track of users connected to the Internet around the globe. ICQ (I Seek You get it?) offers a system that sends you a message when anyone in your "watch list" connects to the Internet. America On-Line (AOL) also has this service for its worldwide network of users. So when a message pops up that the marketing director in Sydney has connected to the Internet, you can dial him on your virtual phone and have a free cellular phone-quality discussion. Now, if the Sydney (or Vietnam, or...) office isn't wired to the Internet you can still call. By using a system such as Net2Phone you can use your Internet connection to get that same cellular quality-connection to their regular telephone at a fraction of the cost of direct dialing. Now, don't expect perfect quality and don't be surprised if a call or two gets cut off. But I seem to have that happen occasionally using the regular phone system.
Give it a try. At least it will feel good when you think
about your last phone bill. So how do I start? To start using Internet voice and telephone capabilities you need some special equipment, and if you're currently using the Internet you may already have it. The hardware you need includes: *A modem (upgrade to 28,800 bps today if you haven't already) *A sound card get a Sound Blaster compatible card with full duplex capabilities *Speakers and a microphone *PC headset (about E£150). This replacement for your speakers and microphone makes using the computer as a telephone pleasant and easy. Get one with a mute button. The hands-free operation and built-in microphone are worth every piaster.
Now with the proper hardware, let's get the software.
This is an exploding industry. It has new companies,
new products and even new technologies virtually every
month. Here is the current state of the art. For calling other Internet computer users There are many choices, some for free. The key criteria is compatibility. What you want is a simple, free or low-cost system that can reach your friends, family and 'wired' business associates. You don't all have to use the same software, just something that supports the same protocol for voice communications. You can use a PC to talk to a Macintosh in most cases without trouble. Demonstration "limited" versions of commercial software work fine and are free if you want to just talk to your friends. You and your friends just have to be on-line on the Internet at the same time though you may be on different continents. If you all use the same software program then it's a snap. Using different programs involves a bit more work, but it can be done. The key is how you identify each other via the Internet. Some systems give you their own 'user number' that identifies you, others let you be searched for by name. Let's start with a sure-fire flexible system: Phonefree (http://www.Phonefree.com) Download the Phonefree software and register at the web site. This gives you a user ID/account number. This system is free and works great. If you call someone who doesn't answer, you can even leave a voice mail message! As the name implies, this system is completely free. Webphone by Netspeak (http://www.andrina.com) Webphone 3.0 software allows conference calling, voice mail, full motion video phone capabilities and all the features you would want, but the software costs $50. The free version limits you to three-minute calls and only three phone directory entries. It has a neat interface that looks just like a cellular phone. Televox (http://www.voxware.com) Televox 2.5 software is free for two weeks, then costs $30. This system is great if you want to talk to family and friends. It's easy to set up and is not overburdened with users. Just arrange to connect to the Internet at the same time as the party you want to talk to, start up the software and select their name from the list of users. You can be talking over the Internet in 10 minutes. Internet Phone (http://www.vocaltech.com)
Internet Phone 4.0 (the downloadable trial version works
for a week for free. To use it after that you have
to pay the license fee of $50) works well across all
platforms. They also offer Internet Voice Mail: This
software lets you send voice mail messages to people
who are off-line. The Voice Mail player software is
free but the trial Voice Mail software to create messages
expires after your 10th message. Buy it for another
$50. Calling regular phones from your computer The first stop is Net2phone http://www.Net2phone.com. This is really exciting. Surf to the Net2phone web site, download the free software and start calling toll free numbers (1-800, 1-888) in the US. Immediately. They offer different versions of the Net2phone program for Macs, older (slower PCs) and Pentium-based machines. Pick the appropriate version, download and install it. It is absolutely free to call those toll-free numbers. Try it with some 1-800 numbers. If you're satisfied with the quality of the calls and you want to call regular telephones with Net2Phone, it can be at a fantastic discount. If you have a credit card you can order a "debit card" right from the web site and start calling any telephone number in the US for 15 cents per minute at peak times and 10 cents per minute, off-peak. Calls to the UK cost 18 cents a minute. Using Net2phone is easy. It has an interface that looks like a big push-button phone and has a speed calling feature for 10 numbers. If you don't have a credit card you can mail them a check (minimum purchase of $100 if the check is from outside the US). If, like many people, you haven't accepted the fact that the Internet is safe for credit card transactions and you don't trust the Internet to keep your credit card number secret, you can send your credit card number by fax to buy your phone debit card. Personally I feel that it's a lot safer putting my credit card number on the Internet on a secured server than handing it to a random kid pumping gas so I order my telephone debit cards on-line. Net2phone sends you the debit card number via e-mail within 24 hours (usually a lot faster) and you can start using it immediately. Debit card accounting Each time you use your debit card an automated voice system tells you how much credit you have left and how many minutes this would give you on the current call. For example, your first call to the US on a new $25 debit card tells you that you have "25 dollars" and "166 minutes" left on your account. Another system for calling regular telephones from your computer is Global Exchange Carrier (http://www.gxc.com). This program is similar to Net2phone except you must have Internet Phone software (mentioned above) installed on your computer. GXC plans to remove this limitation and provide their own software interface in the future so there will be nothing to buy. But for now you have to pay out $40 to get Internet Phone first.
You must have a major credit card to use this system.
They bill you monthly directly to your credit card
account and are not offering debit cards at this time. Phone to phone calling The last category is for everyone, whether or not they have a computer. Several companies, led by Global Link, are offering a service to provide telephone to telephone and fax communications over the Internet. Why? Because they can offer a 90 to 95 percent discount on international dialing rates. These systems are still in limited implementation, and currently you can only originate calls from the US, UK, Hong Kong, Japan and a few other places. Soon, however, you will be able to call anywhere in the world, getting cellular phone-quality at a tiny fraction of the current cost.
Think about it before you buy stock in the phone company. Internet questions? Need help finding Java resources? I can help.
E-mail: kilenm@bigfoot.com
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