Garbled gab
Voices carry (or not) with Internet telephony
Matthew Miller, Managing Editor

But you know the score. Most of those plans charge $4 or $5 monthly fees. The low rate is only good during certain times of the day. And even 4 or 5 cents a minute can add up.

All right then, how does 1 cent a minute sound? Or how about 0—yes 0—cents a minute? You can lock in such low (or nonexistent) rates right now by signing on with one of a burgeoning number of Internet telephony services.

You won't see these services advertised on TV (yet), and they certainly don't employ celebrity spokespersons (or spokescartoons). Nonetheless, Internet telephony is luring increasing numbers of people with the promise of cheap, or even free, long distance.

I set out to try Internet telephony from the point of view of the average Joe—something I'm well qualified to do. Unlike my esteemed colleague who often writes in this space, I have no technical background. And my home PC is a plain-vanilla box with Windows 98, a 400-MHz Pentium II, and a 56-kbps modem. No broadband connection, no home LAN.

Voice-over-data services are finding increasing use among businesses, but the real drama is unfolding in the consumer space. Online ITSPs (Internet telephony service providers) have been popping up like dandelions and attracting millions of members. And several consumer-oriented hardware products are starting to hit store shelves.

Whether you're an interested bystander or someone whose company is thinking of entering this market, the questions are the same: Can regular folks, who lack in-house technical support, really take advantage of this stuff? Does the quality measure up to regular calls? In short, can Internet telephony deliver on its promises?

Extreme need

My household actually adopted Internet telephony long before I started this project. I used to live in Hong Kong. I met my wife there, and her family still lives there. Two years ago, we moved to the US and found ourselves facing breathtaking phone bills. The cheapest rate we could find was around 40 cents a minute (we've since found a 17-cent deal).

Once that's done, you use the telephone keypad to program the device with the telephone number, username, and password necessary to connect with your ISP. Entering the telephone number is simple, but teaching the device your alphabetic username and password is somewhat cumbersome. You first have to translate each character into a two-digit code you can type on the keypad. For example, "a" becomes "40" and "e" becomes "14." The company makes this as painless as possible with a clear setup manual and an online translation engine that does the conversion for you.

By dialing into the Internet using your ISP, the Aplio/Phone lets you make free calls to anywhere. But there's a fairly large catch. When we bought the machine, you had to have an Aplio/Phone on both ends of the conversation. (A subsequent upgrade gave the device the ability to call PCs as well.)

For us, it was still a no-brainer. We shelled out $400 for two of the devices, but we've saved many times that in international calling charges.

It works like this. My wife picks up the phone and calls her mom direct using AT&T. When her mom answers, my wife pushes a button on our Aplio/Phone, and both parties hang up. Next, each Aplio/Phone dials its ISP and finds its twin over the Internet. Then both phones ring, both women pick up, and the Internet call commences. We pay AT&T for the initial minute, but then it's free.

Free, but not always easy. The quality—of the voice reproduction and of the connection—can vary wildly, depending on Internet congestion. At best, you feel like you're talking on a good digital cell phone. At worst, you experience long delays, broken words, lost phrases, and even dropped connections. In addition, the system has multiple potential points of failure. Two Aplio/Phones must be properly configured and two ISPs have to be working. When problems crop up, they can be difficult to debug.

Having to have one Aplio/Phone on each end works for us, because we make lots of calls to a single location. But today's Internet-telephony options give consumers the freedom to call any phone in the world. Again though, there's a catch: The calls won't always be free.

Multiple Internet-telephony options are hitting the market as we speak. I tried four different ones for this article. Each makes use of a piece of hardware and an ITSP, but no two are exactly alike (see table, "The lineup").

First up was Net2Phone's Yap Phone, a stylish handset-shaped device. (YAP stands for "Your Alternative Phone.") Installation proved a breeze. I simply plugged the handset's cord into my PC's USB port, then installed Net2Phone's software from the included CD. The install process walked me through an interactive test to make sure the handset was functioning. It also prompted me to enter the account and pin numbers for the Net2Phone ITSP account that comes with the device, which includes $10 of credit.

I went online, picked up the Yap Phone, and tried to place my first call. Immediately I got an error message saying the Net2Phone software wasn't configured to call through the Yap Phone. Apparently, you can also use the Net2Phone software without the Yap Phone—instead employing a microphone and speakers or a headset. I eventually found a setting in the Net2Phone software for "favored device," which the setup manual hadn't mentioned. Once I pointed that to the Yap Phone, I was in business.

My first call went to my parents' house in Wisconsin. They weren't home, but their answering machine came through loud and clear. So I left a message.

Next, I dialed my wife's office number. The conversation went something like this:

"Hello?"

"Hi! How are you doing, honey?"

"Hello?"

"I'm here, can you hear me?"

"I hear you, but there's a lot of echo."

"Sorry about that…"

"Hello?"

"I'll call you back on the regular phone."

Much later, my parents called back to make sure I wasn't on drugs; the message I left had come out so garbled that they couldn't understand a word. Consulting the online help and Net2Phone's technical support, I learned that, to eliminate echo, you must play around with the volume settings, especially for the "microphone" (really the handset microphone). To do so, you adjust sliders in the Net2Phone software and/or your PC's control panels. Each PC is different, the tech adviser told me, so manual tuning is essential.

This advice led to my first fruitful conversation, which, according to my wife, compared favorably to a call using our digital cell phone. Later on, we spoke with my sister-in-law in New York. Then we called my brother-in-law in Hong Kong. He was walking down the street using his cell phone, and nonetheless reported a remarkable connection.

But we also experienced several failures. Often, after a long wait for a connection, the Net2Phone software reported "no response from servers." Net2Phone engineer Jorge Palacios points out, rightly, that this kind of problem can occur with any Internet-telephony product due to heavy Internet traffic or an unstable connection. I tried an alternate ISP for several calls and chalked up a higher success rate, although I still suffered some failures.

Net2Phone charges 1 cent/minute for calls within the US, and the call to Hong Kong came in at 5 cents/minute. Like all ITSPs, Net2Phone has to pay a carrier at the call's destination to put the call through to a regular phone. The Yap Phone is already available at retailers, such as CompUSA, for $54.99.

No PC required

Next, I tried another Net2Phone product, the $159.99 Yap Jack. Like the Aplio/Phone, the Yap Jack is a small box that hooks up to your phone and logs in to your ISP to place Internet calls. However, where the Aplio/Phone can only call another of its kind (or a PC), the Yap Jack can call any phone. You pay the same rates as with the Yap Phone.

VOCAL TECH: From left to right, Net2Phone’s Yap Phone, the Yap Jack, and Actiontec Electronics’ InternetPhoneWizard.

As with the Aplio, you use the phone keypad to configure the Yap Jack. But where Aplio uses a two-digit code to represent each character, the Yap Jack depends on the number of times you press each key before hitting the "#" key.

For example, to enter an "n" with the Aplio, you press "5," then "3." With the Yap Jack, you press the "6" key three times, then the "#" key. When it comes to special characters, the Yap Jack gets a little ridiculous. Entering a hyphen takes 12 keystrokes (the "1" key 11 times, then the "#" key once).

Unfortunately, our ISP (AT&T WorldNet) favors long words. Our username measures 26 characters and our password 15. Translated for entry into the Yap Jack, the username required 82 keystrokes, and the password, which contains a hyphen, required 74. By contrast, the Aplio/Phone required "only" 54 keystrokes for the username and 32 for the password.

Let's just say the operator (that would be me) had some difficulty making 82 accurate keystrokes in a row. An unfortunate misprint in the otherwise excellent manual didn't make the task any easier. The typo, which Net2Phone has since corrected, told us that for a hyphen, we should push the "1" key 10 times, but it actually requires 11 presses. Luckily, the Yap Jack reads back your entries, which allowed us to divine the problem.

Once configured, the Yap Jack is simple to operate. You pick up the phone, press a button on the Yap Jack, get prompted to enter the number you're calling, and hang up. The Yap Jack dials your ISP, and then the phone rings. You pick up and the Yap Jack tells you how much money remains in your account. Then you hear the other phone ring.

Playing the field

Unlike the Yap products, my third trial unit, Actiontec Electronics' $99 USB InternetPhoneWizard, lets you choose from among several ITSPs to complete your calls.

You hook the small box-shaped device to your PC through a USB port. Next, you plug a regular phone into the device. Finally, you run an additional phone cord from the device to your PC's modem.

So far so good. But I ran into some problems with the software installation. The installer couldn't find a clock file it needed, neither on my system nor on my Windows installation CD. Actiontec sent me the file via email and says the problem has now been cleared up, well in time for the product's late August rollout.

With that puzzle solved, I selected Dialpad.com as my ITSP and picked up the phone. My browser opened up and went straight to Dialpad's site. After I registered to open an account, Dialpad presented me with a dialing screen. I tried to dial using the phone keypad. I failed. Then I checked the manual. Turns out you first have to use the mouse to click in the onscreen field for number-entry. Then you can use either the PC keyboard or the phone handset to dial.

That's a clumsy process. But Actiontec marketing director Lesley Kirchman points out that the InternetPhoneWizard is more tightly integrated with Deltathree. Using that ITSP, you can use a cordless phone to place a Net call from another room, without even touching the PC.

I didn't test that feature, but I experimented with both ITSPs. As you might predict by now, my calls proved a mixed bag. As with the other devices, I had some clear calls—including a pleasant 25-minute conversation with my parents. But other calls suffered from varying quality and unexplained failures.

Overall, I found the InternetPhoneWizard's manual and operation somewhat confusing, and I suspect non-technical consumers would get befuddled too. But the device has some advantages savvier buyers might value. First, it doesn't confine you to one ITSP. Second, if you have two phone lines, or a cable, DSL, or ISDN connection, you can use the device's I-Phone Switch to put an Internet call on hold while you take an incoming regular call.

Heads up

For my fourth and final experiment, I decided to go low end. I picked up a $10 telephone headset at the local computer store, plugged it in via my PC's sound card, and used some of the ITSPs to place calls.

All during the project, I'd been questioning the value of the hardware products that hook to the PC. If Jane Doe already has a PC, why would she want to spend $50 to $100 on a dedicated Internet-telephony device, especially when telephony headsets are so cheap?

Sarah Hofstetter, Net2Phone's vice president of corporate communications, says consumers find the Yap Phone's familiar shape comforting. More important, the device provides much better sound than a headset, she says. Similarly, Actiontec's Kirchman maintains that the InternetPhoneWizard performs sound-processing tasks that result in superior performance, even in PCs that lack telephony-oriented sound cards.

To test these assertions, I used my cheap headset and Dialpad to leave a message on my office voice-mail system. Then I called the office on my regular phone to listen to the message. Sure enough, I sounded like a mutant—the other products provided noticeably better voice reproduction.

Needless to say, my headset-plus-ITSP setup also fell victim to the same connection problems as the other products. Still, I can't help but wonder: If a person is willing to tolerate Internet telephony's inferiority to the regular phone system, wouldn't that person also be willing to put up with marginally worse (but still intelligible) voice reproduction from a headset? After all, anybody who uses Internet telephony is primarily concerned with saving money.

Be prepared

Which brings me to quality. When I started this project, I thought I'd use a simple litmus test. I planned to call people without mentioning that I was phoning over the Net, and see whether the quality of the connection became a topic of conversation.

As I expected, every product failed that test. But the test was unfair to begin with. As everybody knows, the Internet simply isn't built to deliver the same quality and reliability we're used to with the phone system. Not yet anyway.

To be sure, the devices have advantages and disadvantages. If Consumer A just loves his regular phone, the InternetPhoneWizard, Yap Jack, and Aplio/Phone will let him use it to make Net calls. If a Consumer B doesn't already have a PC, neither the Yap Jack nor the Aplio/Phone will force her to buy one. If Consumer C uses his PC all the time anyway, the headset route might work out. Or the Yap Phone might suit Consumer D, who just likes the feel of a handset. The InternetPhoneWizard fits Consumer E, who needs to toggle between Internet and regular calls.

However, whether you're one of those consumers, or a company entering the Internet-telephony market, know what you're getting into.

Internet telephony sometimes results in a perfectly reasonable conversation. But it's also prone to unnatural delays. Voices sometimes break up. Completely random and mysterious fluctuations in voice quality will test the patience of any consumer, as will failures to connect.

In its current state, Internet telephony is a tough sell. Mainstream consumers are likely to get frustrated. They're likely to decide they'd rather spend a few extra pennies to call on a "real" phone. After all, can't you just hear your mother asking why she's not good enough for 5 cents a minute?

Overeager companies don't help matters by claiming that the quality of Internet calls is just as good as regular calls, as one of my test-product packages stated.

However, it's early. If the evolution of Internet-telephony is a 24-hour day, it's about three minutes past midnight right now. With broadband, quality may improve. I hope to test that hypothesis in a future update. Eventually, the Internet itself will evolve to adeptly handle voice traffic. As today's products demonstrate, we've only just started a long and promising journey.