VocalTec: Web Phone Quality Will Surpass Regular Telephony
By STEPHANIE N. MEHTA
Dow Jones Newswires
NEW YORK -- Telephone calls that travel over networks based on Internet technology eventually will surpass traditional phone calls in sound quality, said Elon Ganor, chairman of VocalTec Communications Ltd. (VOCL)
"In the future, Internet Protocol telephony will be better than the quality of traditional public-switched telephone network calls," said Dr. Ganor. "As bandwidth improves, carriers will have more flexibility."
VocalTel, based in Herzliya, Israel, makes software that enables Internet Protocol telephone calls. Such calls are transported in "packets," which are reassembled at the calls' termination points, much the way data traffic travels.
Such calls are cheaper in part because carriers bypass so-called "access charges" that long-distance carriers pay to the local telephone companies for terminating or originating telephone calls on local networks. But in exchange for lower prices, consumers often endure poor sound quality or delays.
But Dr. Ganor said the quality of Internet Protocol, or IP, calls will improve as technology advances and the capacity of local and long-distance networks improves. Already voice quality of IP calls is better than it was a few years ago, he said.
VocalTel, for example, is providing software to China Telecom for an Internet telephony trial in multiple cities. "You should hear the quality of the calls," Dr. Ganor said. "The quality is comparable to a local call in New York."
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