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Technology Stocks : Voice-on-the-net (VON), VoIP, Internet (IP) Telephony -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (1155)	8/24/1998 12:12:00 AM
From: Bernard Levy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3178

Frank and others: For a contrarian view on the importance of voice versus data, see: telecoms-mag.com Personally, I am very skeptical about this article's conclusions. Looking at engineering students on our campus, I see few phone calls, but lots of e-mails, and lots of web surfing. Best regards, Bernard Levy

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (1155)	8/24/1998 1:52:00 AM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3178

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]