Date: Fri 12-Dec-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

iinfo-telephone-internet

Full Text:

Internet Info: Telephone Calls Over The Net

By Bob Brand

The day will come when you will be able to place a local (toll free) call to

your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and connect to phones all over the

country. The technology is here now.

The phone line in your home is called a POTS (plain old telephone service)

line. There is a copper wire running from your house to the telephone company

CO (Central Office) or SLC (serial line concentrator). From there, the

telephone network uses glass fiber. Office buildings have very few POTS lines

(only for modems and FAX machines) and have digital phone signals running

between the offices. A business will have a PBX (Private Branch eXchange)

somewhere in the building that handles the telephones. The PBX receives

incoming phone calls (they are digital signals remember) and routes them to

the proper phone within the building.

Digital means ones and zeros. This is not magic. With your home phone, the

POTS signal (non-digital) is changed over to digital (ones and zeros) at the

CO or SLC. The Internet is all digital. The information moves around the Net

with TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/Internet protocol). In many cases,

the Internet uses telephone lines to accomplish the task. The ISP is connected

to the BIG network (the Internet) so it is only a small leap for people to

access the Internet Network instead of the phone network for phone calls. The

only thing holding this back is equipment. Soon that will change.

Enter TouchWave

TouchWave Inc, a Denmark-based company, has set up offices in Silicon Valley,

Palo Alto, California. They recently released WebSwitch, a product that can

replace the PBX switch. For about $8,500 a business can install WebSwitch,

allowing 16 phone line extensions plus connection to a LAN (local area

network).

The phone company would have to replace the copper wire coming into the PBX

and connect to WebSwitch. Small companies often have significant phone bills.

This could be a real cost saver. In addition, there is equipment available

that will allow PBX calls to be routed over the Internet.

You can see that the next step is for an ISP to install this type of

equipment. The ISP holds your on-ramp to the Information SuperHighway. Thus,

if you have the right type of equipment in your home, you make a local phone

call to the ISP, then tap in a few more numbers and the call goes through.

What About

The Phone Company?

The first question that comes to mind is: "Why, if this is so easy, don't the

phone companies have a lot to lose?" Sure they do. That is why SNET has moved

aggressively into the Internet Service Provider business along with NYNEX/Bell

Atlantic and other RBOCs (Regional Bell Operating Companies). Local phone

service is now open to competition. This will mean that you will have a choice

in phone service to your home. By the way, if the phone companies drag their

feet, the cable television providers, who may already have a fiber cable

coming into your TV set, can step in.

Is there a down side? Sure, the quality of the digital phone will not be as

high as what you are getting now. If the trade-off is between "hearing a pin

drop" and saving a few dollars on long distance phone charges, which will you

choose? However, before we get to that type of choice, more equipment will

have to be in place first. The good news is that the equipment is available

for purchase and the prices are dropping. It is only a matter of time before

we see tangible results.

The Internet continues to change at a breathtaking pace. Telephony over the

Net for most of us with home computers should be more widespread within the

next several years. These are exciting times.

URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) of interest:

http://touchwave.com/

http://www.phonezone.com/tutorial/index.htm

http://www.herring.com/insider/1997/0903/telephony.html

http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,17027,00.html/latest

Note: This is the 81st in a series of elementary articles designed for surfing

the Internet. Next, "@" is the subject on tap. Stay tuned. Until next week,

happy travels through cyberspace. Previous issues of Internet Info for Real

People (including links to sites mentioned in this article) can be found:

http://www.thebee.com. Please e-mail comments and suggestions to:

rbrand@JUNO.com or editor@thebee.com.