What You'll Need
To get started using an Internet phone service, all you need is a
sound card with a microphone and speakers, a 56-kbps modem, an Internet
connection (AOL is okay), and a browser. To increase your chances of making the
service work right, though, you need to do a few things.
First, make sure your sound card is full-duplex, and upgrade if
necessary. Most old sound cards are half-duplex--you'll know you have an older
card if only one person can talk at a time, as with a two-way radio. If you're
running at half-duplex, you might be able to fix the problem with a new driver.
Check your sound card maker's Web site for an update. In my tests, I used both
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live and AWE full-duplex sound cards with no
problem.
Next, you should consider buying a sturdy headset. This device will
help block external noise, making it easier to hear the caller. And in most
cases a headset is superior in quality to the sticklike microphone that
sometimes accompanies sound cards. Even poor connections sound better over a
good headset.
Finding a comfortable, technically solid headset involves trial and
error. One of my favorites is Andrea's $40 NC-72 PC monaural. It's lightweight,
and people said my voice sounded terrific. For comfort and quality, Telex's $90
H-551, a stereo USB headset, was another winner. Riparius's $25 telephone-like
handset (sold by ZeroPlus) was hard to hold, and Labtec's $50 LVA-8550 was the
worst of the bunch, with poor sound reception from the earphones and
substandard audio transmission.
If you don't like headsets, try Net2Phone's $55 Yap Phone, a handheld
device that looks like a phone and connects to your PC. Calling someone who
owns a Yap Phone is free. If the person you're calling doesn't have one, calls
cost a penny a minute in the United States and 3.9 cents or more a minute for
overseas calls. But the Yap Phone performed no better than Net phones used with
a headset, and working with it wasn't any easier.
Another Net2Phone product, the Yap Jack--which charges the same fees
as the Yap Phone--doesn't require either party to have a PC, but the caller
does need an Internet service provider. Attach a regular phone to the $160 Yap
Jack, connect the Yap Jack to the wall jack, and start making calls. The Yap
Jack was handy, but setup was arduous. It's also mighty expensive. Net2Phone
offers a calling card, too. Its rates are about the same as those of online
services, and it doesn't require you to make calls from your PC.
Net Connection Matters
If you have a dial-up connection, you must use a 56-kbps modem.
Anything slower, and you'll experience dreadful voice quality--static, dropped
words, and echoes. That said, even with a 56-kbps modem, I frequently had to
play the CB radio game of saying "over" to signal I was finished speaking.
Dick Norton, a frequent Internet phone user in Burbank, California,
uses Dialpad with his 56-kbps modem. He reports that his calls "typically last
30 to 40 minutes and are good quality on an amazingly consistent basis."
If you want your Internet phone to work like a regular phone--and you
plan to use it on a regular basis--get a high-speed DSL or cable modem
connection. Voice quality was substantially better (but still imperfect) in all
my tests using cable or DSL.
I'm not the only one with a preference for a high-speed connection.
"My uncle in Texas called me [in Canada] on his dial-up connection, and it was
worse than a ham radio communication to Mars," says Shawn R. Ahmed, a student
in Bedford, Nova Scotia. Yet when I used DSL to call Ahmed on Deltathree's
PC-to-phone product (and again when he used his cable modem to call me), we
understood each other easily.
As broadband ramps up, the technology behind Internet phone services
will undoubtedly improve, but don't say adios to Ma Bell just yet. For the time
being, most of us will use Internet calls only for shooting the breeze with
friends and relatives. I predict, however, that in three years you'll probably
make at least half your calls via Internet phones. But until Web-based
telephony becomes as easy to use as regular phone service and offers the
latter's crystal-clear quality, few of us will switch to it completely for our
business calls.
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