To: SouthFloridaGuy who wrote (2437 ) 3/8/1999 9:11:00 PM From: Secret_Agent_Man Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 30916
Ringing Endorsements: Now for Some Real Online Chat By David Stires SmartMoney Page 124 (c) 1999 SmartMoney. All rights reserved. At first, when Brent Budowsky of Washington, D.C., read that a little-known outfit named IDT would begin offering long-distance service over the Internet in his area, he was skeptical. The 46-year-old business consultant figured the sound quality would be questionable at best. And besides, there was no need to switch phone companies -- he was already getting a pretty good deal from Sprint. But then something changed his mind: "You can't beat five cents a minute," Budowsky explains. Indeed, the nickel-a-minute rate Budowsky now pays for his "Internet telephony" from IDT (800-225-5438) has cut his monthly long-distance bill to just $50 --half what it was before. Why so cheap? The major reason is that Net phone companies don't have to pay access charges to other carriers for the use of their lines. Here's how it typically works. You dial up a local-access number on your home phone (no, you don't even need a computer). Then you input a personal authorization code and the number you're calling --up to 32 digits in all. When the call goes through, you talk into the receiver as you normally would. The Net provider turns your voice into digitized data and shoots it through its network, before converting it back to voice on the other end. (Bills are generally paid in advance by credit card.) So is this the wave of the future? Maybe -- but "future" is the operative word here. In addition to all that tiresome number-inputting, glitches such as echoes and transmission delays continue to plague the system, experts say. Even Budowsky, who swears by his Internet-calling routine, isn't all that enthusiastic about the sound quality. "It's getting there," he says, a year after signing up for the service. "Now I don't have any calls that are horrendous." Sarah Hofstetter VP, IDT Corporate Communications 201-928-2882idt.net