Internet Phone-to-Phone Calls Offered For 1 Cent A Minute
[Readt this and get a lesson in spin control, after last week's debut. FAC]
August 24, 1998
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., Newsbytes via
NewsEdge Corporation : San Diego-based national
internet service providerA+Net abac.com ,
has this week introduced 1 cent per minute long distance
telephoning for customers in San Diego, Atlanta, New
York City and Alexandria, Virginia - using regular
telephones to place calls over the internet.
During a special introductory beta phase, the company's
new VoIP (voice over internet protocol) gateways,
provided by project partner Ascend Communications,
ascend.com , [NASDAQ:ASND], will allow
the use of regular telephones for penny per minute
calling to, but not from, any other A+Net customer
within the following area codes: California (619), Georgia
(404,678), Missouri (573), New Jersey (732), New York
(212, 516,718, 914), and Virginia (703,804.) The service is
available for both residential and business customers in
the project area.
"Surprisingly to us, all testing to date has produced very
high, completely acceptable voice quality." Ivan
Vachovsky, A+Net's IP Telephony project manager, told
Newsbytes. PC-based internet telephony technology,
now some four years old, has been plagued by scratchy
voice quality and abrupt disconnects. But Vachovsky
attributes A+Net's good transmission results to first rate
equipment and plenty of bandwidth. "We have very
high speed internet connections through our backbone
providers UUNET and MCI," said Vachovsky.
The plan is to expand the service area gradually, with
more area codes covered as new equipment is brought
online. And project manager Vachovsky wasn't mincing
his words when Newsbytes asked him to comment on
the future of VoIP in general, particularly
phone-to-phone internet telephony.
"Digital packet IP is the future of voice/data
communications," said Vachovsky. "And as for current
thinking regarding PC-based internet telephones, that's
great for the geeks who may be comfortable speaking
into a tiny computer microphone, but what if you want to
call grandma? That's where we need to bring in the use
of simple, familiar equipment - and the telephone is still
the best device around for that. And using the public
internet or a corporate intranet to transmit calls over long
distances is obviously much less expensive now -- for
geeks and grandmas alike."
(19980821/WIRES TELECOM, ONLINE, NETWORK/)
<<Newsbytes -- 08-21-98>>
[Copyright 1998, NewsBytes]
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