IP: MILLIONS PHONING ONLINE: PRICE IS RIGHT EVEN IF QUALITY ISN'T Edupage, 7 July 2000

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>
>Although the quality of phone calls over the Internet is
>imperfect, consumers are increasingly attracted to Internet
>telephony because of the lure of free or extremely cheap calls.
>About 15 million Americans now use Internet-based voice
>communication, up from 5 million a year ago.  As the market
>grows, about two dozen companies have begun offering online voice
>communication.  Internet telephony is relatively simple,
>requiring an Internet hookup, headphones, and a microphone.
>After signing up with an Internet telephony provider, users can
>make local or long-distance calls to people with any type of
>phone.  However, since voice transmissions are carried over the
>Internet in small packets in the same manner as data
>transmissions, conversations are often subject to delays.
>Without a high-speed Internet connection, the quality of an
>Internet call can be very poor.  However, companies are working
>to improve the quality of Internet telephony.  Within five years
>Internet telephony will represent at least 15 percent of
>long-distance traffic in the U.S., compared with about 1 percent
>currently. (New York Times, 6 July 2000)