Business Week Online's guest on Thursday, March 7, 1996, was telecommunications expert Jeff Pulver. He was accompanied by John W. Verity, Information Management editor for Business Week. The topic was new technologies that are coming to market for placing long-distance phone calls via the Internet--without using the phone company or paying a long-distance charge.
Copyright 1996 The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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OnlineHost: Welcome to Business Week Online. Tonight we'll take your questions on Internet phoning--a method of calling worldwide via the Net without incurring long-distance charges. Onstage to discuss this topic is telecommunications expert and Net phone aficionado Jeff Pulver. He's accompanied by John Verity (JVerityBW), BW's Information Management editor. The moderator is Bob Arnold (BobABW). Jeff Pulver's screen name is JPulver781.
BobABW: Welcome, Jeff & John, and hi to you in the audience.
JVerityBW: Hello all!
JPulver781: Hello all.
BobABW: Jeff, maybe you can start off by telling us what Internet phoning is.
JPulver781: Internet telephony is an enabling technology which allows two or more people to communicate over the Internet or their own IntraNet.
BobABW: How does it work, exactly?
JVerityBW: Jeff, what's the basic equipment required to get started? Machine? Modem?
JPulver781: Internet Telephony is an exchange of packets -- that's right -- your voice is converted into packets which go out over the Internet and are then coverted back to .wav files on your PC. For most of the popular products on the marketplace today one needs a multimedia PC -- one with a sound card, speakers, and a mic.
JVerityBW: Jeff, what kind of Internet access does one need, and how fast a modem? Can you do this over AOL, or the other commercial services?
JPulver781: John, at least a 14.4 connection to the Net, although some of the newer Internet telephony products work much better with a 28.8 connection. Yes, you can use this over AOL.
BobABW: How good is the voice quality, Jeff?
JPulver781: The voice quality ranges from just 'ok' to CD-quality.
JVerityBW: Does one buy the software at the store, or over the Net?
JPulver781: Most of the software is available from downloads over the Net, and this results in many people being able to 'try before you buy.'
BobABW: Jeff, what are the telecom charges for doing this?
JPulver781: Bob, in the United States are are no additional costs for using this technology -- at least today.
BobABW: MaRI118 is up, with this question:
Question: Is Quarterdeck the leader in this technology?
BobABW: That raises a good point: Who are the leaders in this technology?
JPulver781: Quarterdeck is one of the leaders -- at this time there are several key players in the field. As of March, 1996, the following companies have VON (Voice on Net) products: VocalTec, Quarterdeck, Camelot, Internet Telephony Company, FreeTel, VoxWare, and several others...
JVerityBW: Not all these phone software products can interoperate with each other, right?
JPulver781: John, that is correct. In fact, none of them can interoperate at this time.
JVerityBW: Are there standards coming, though?
JPulver781: Yes. On January 31, many of these companies have stated that they will support the RTP protocol, which, together with Netscape, should help establish a commercial standard for this enabling technology.
JVerityBW: What kind of threat does VON pose to the established phone carriers -- ATT, Nynex, etc.???
JPulver781: Actually a rather big threat. A couple of days ago, 130 long-distance phone companies got together and petitioned the FCC to ban the sale of Internet telephony software and hardware.
JVerityBW: What chance do they have of getting action?
JPulver781: It depends. I actually hope to testify at the Spring '96 FCC meetings myself. What I found most interesting is that there are other countries around the world closely monitoring the situation, and whatever action or inaction the FCC takes will directly influence the future of the worldwide use of Intenet Telephony.
BobABW: On what basis did the phone companies make their request, Jeff? What's their rationale?
JPulver781: According to their papers, it's a basic case of potential lost revenues -- which the long-distance carriers are losing. But what they don't realize is that most of the conversations taking place on the Net today are between strangers and hobbyists, mostly not a commerical audiance just yet.
BobABW: So, lost revenues -- that's competition. What's wrong with that?
JPulver781: They feel that there should be a tariff paid.
JVerityBW: Explain how Internet calls might be connected into the regular phone network, to reach those who don't have a Net connection. There are companies and volunteers doing this, no?
JPulver781: Sure. One of the projects which I'm directly involved with is something called Free World Dialup. There are volunteers from over 40 countries getting together, and we are actually providing free telephone calls around the world at this moment. Taking a quick look at the global network server running nearby this computer (I'm using right now), I can see that at this very moment there are servers running in Phoenix, AZ; Norwalk, CT; Cambridge, MA; and in Canada.
For more information regarding The Free World Dialup project you can visit - http://www.pulver.com/fwd - or send e-mail to jeff@pulver.com and mark the subject FWD. Just as an aside, this experiment will continue to run until at least the end of April, and we hope to continue to bring servers online until that date.
JVerityBW: Jeff, what brand of VON software does the Free World Dialup net use?
JPulver781: John, the Free World Dialup (FWD) project supports all of the VON products, but we were able to take advantage of the API from IPhone, so by default IPhone is the product which most of the servers are running today. But we do support all of the various products at this time.
BobABW: Jeff, here's a good question from JohnS7345:
Question: Will the use of this technology cause net providers to charge more because phone companies will charge more for providers to use the phone lines?
JPulver781: It is possible that in the future we may see a metering effect take place. This is true today in other parts of the world. Flat rate Internet access is something which has the perception of costing 'somebody something.' But only time will tell.
BobABW: I think Viper8 wants to know what it costs per minute to make a call via the Internet:
Question: How much will this cost?
JPulver781: For me there are no incremental costs. It is strictly dependent upon what your connect charges to the Net are. There are no extra fees charged for Internet telephony at this time.
BobABW: MikeMerc wants to know about the hidden difficulties of Internet phoning:
Question: Is the necessary software tricky to configure for the "average" user?
JPulver781: Yes. There are times when setting up your computer to make it available for Internet phoning can be difficult -- especially if you haven't installed a sound card before and are not familiar with how to tweak the sound of your sound system. Many people have trouble setting up their microphones the first time around as well. Generally speaking, it could take up to an hour or so to ready your computer for Internet telephony.
JVerityBW: By the way, there are several companies exploiting VON technology. One, called CallWare, has a scheme that lets you download voice mail to your computer -- a laptop, perhaps, while you're in a foreign country. The result is that you avoid long-distance phone charge. Another company, IDT, in Hackensack, N.J., has promised to let overseas callers make cheap calls into the U.S. and elsewhere by accepting their VON calls and connecting them into the U.S. phone network. Much invention going on!
BobABW: Rick Yeo is heading for the barricades, it seems:
Question: How can we help to stop the phone companies from restricting use?
JPulver781: Well, there are some things we can all do. I recently formed a group called the VON Coalition. We will be issuing a major press release on Monday, March 11th, but basically we are an organization which represents both the VON software companies and users of Internet Telephony...
JVerityBW: Jeff, isn't there some fear that mass use of VON technology would clog up the Net, that there would be a slowdown? Most traffic today is quite bursty, but there could be a lot of long streams of data with telephony, no? Clever entrepreneurs might aggregate VON calls to exploit whatever new metered pricing might get put in place?
JPulver781: Early last year there was talk about bandwidth consumption relating to Internet telephony, (but) in respect to all other Net-related traffic, it is still a very small percentage of all Net traffic. Others will argue that as we appear to be near the boundary of bandwidth there are ways to increase it, and this has been the history of the Net to date.
Metered pricing will do nothing more than increase revenues for some companies, and would probably reduce the overall usage of Interent telephony as we know it today. For me, Internet telephony is a hobby, very much like ham radio. Access to my ham radio airwaves is free, and that is how I position access to the Net for my incremental usage of Internet Telephony. Taken to a real far end, what will the post office do in 5 years when most of the direct mail is sent via e-mail mail rather than snail mail?...
BobABW: You may already have answered this question from Rquinonez, but the answer bears repeating:
Question: Does there have to be a computer at the recieving end of the free call?
JVerityBW: Yes, you need a computer at both ends, but either may also be connected to the phone net.
BobABW: Here's learned question, from MARUBIN:
Question: Doesn't latency affect Internet telephony?
JVerityBW: Latency, meaning the delay in transmission time.
JPulver781: Yes it does. Depending upon the 'net' distance between the two parties, there can be a latency of anywhere from .40 of a second to over 1 second. After awhile though, one gets used to the delay.
BobABW: And here's a follow question from MARUBIN:
Question: Is IDT's Net2Phone product operational at this time?
JPulver781: I don't beleive so.
JVerityBW: This connection of VON to the phone network is harder than it looks, I think.
BobABW: Can you tell MikeMerc how exactly to do what he wants?
Question: Is it possible to use a commercial online hookup, say AOL, with Internet phoning, or do you need a direct connection?
JPulver781: For most Internet telephony products you need to be able to run seperate winsock applications. In my case, I'm connected to the Net using tcp/ip, and I'm able to directly connect to AOL via the Net. I'm not sure if with AOL's dialup phone lines one can directly run Winsock applications. But a direct connection is not necessary.
JVerityBW: There are some new services coming to the Net, I believe, that will help with the latency problem. These have originally been designed for multi-player gaming -- Doom, etc., but they will help with phoning, too. Indeed, there are plans to let game players chat with each other in real-time, to help strategize against opposing teams, etc. Interesting stuff.
BobABW: Latency, again, from MARUBIN:
Question: Can you reduce the latency by using ISPs with bigger pipes?
JPulver781: Not necessarly. Using an internet tool like Traceroute, one can check the number of 'hops' between two sites, and, generally speaking, it is the number of hops which adds to the latency. Bigger pipes would only help if the pipe itself was at or near a saturation point.
BobABW: Try this, from Ddd999:
Question: When will Internet phones be full duplex?
JVerityBW: Some already are, in theory at least!
JPulver781: They indeed are. It is up to the sound card and the driver used.
BobABW: And here's one last question, also from Ddd999:
Question: Tell us more about this new standard: Does it allow cross-fuctional access between Macs/PCs?
JPulver781: Not exactly. But both VocalTec and Camelot Corp. have announced plans for their own cross-platform products. VocalTec showcased its Mac product at the Mac Expo back in January.
BobABW: That's a wrap for tonight. Thanks, Jeff Pulver & John Verity, for your time and your insights. And thank you in the audience for your questions.
JVerityBW: 'Night.
JPulver781: 'Night.
BobABW: Please join us on Sunday, March 10, at 9 p.m. ET in the Globe for a conference on AIDS--advances in research and treatments.
BobABW: Thanks again, and good night.
Copyright 1996 The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
