Internet Telephony - part I

Internet Telephony, either as IP-to-IP (NetMeeting) or IP-to-Phone (Net2Phone), emerged sometime in the mid 90's. I was not very attracted in the beginning. Voice quality was poor and my Internet connection was merely a 28.8kbps modem line.

Since then I have moved to a flat with a 10Mbps connection directly to school, which makes the concept more interesting, and as I also spend quite some money on international calls I was interested in finding a cheaper alternative.

As I am calling people that does not necessarily have the equipment needed to utilize IP-to-IP telephony, which would be the best alternative as it is free, I wanted to try an IP-to-Phone solution. My first try (and only so far) was Net2Phone, which proved easy to set up, and quite easy to operate. It's site charges your credit-card, and all works fine.

When it is time to place a call, this too is easy in Net2Phone. Just choose a country and type in the phone number. The user interface comes with sounds that copies the sounds of an ordinary telephone. *bip* *bip*

The one metric for any telephony product though is sound quality. Sound quality and delay. It doesn't matter with low prices or a nifty user interface if the quality of the service is poor. To be very direct; Net2Phone did not fulfull my expectations or needs. Two reasons:

1) Sound quality was too poor. I have not investigated which codec that Net2Phone uses, but the sound of it is simply just a bit too 'tin-can' and 'whooshy'. Compared to an ordinary phone line to any civilized country it is just sub standard.

2) Delay. The delay made it feel like calling across the Atlantic some 15-20 years ago. It isn't very bad, but still, the silence inbetween is awkward. Not as bad as to have to resort to simplex talk, buy still, uncomfortable.

After hanging up. I decided to try to find some software that lets one choose which codec to be used. Quite quickly I discovered that NetMeeting has this feature. The Microsoft G.723.1 codec which is default proved Net2Phone superior, even over a 44kbps line at the recipient end. Infact NetMeeting worked just perfect, except when the modem connection in the other end became overloaded, then it got into serious trouble, with a serious delay.

So, the question of the day is if it is possible to get a NetMeeting quality product with a IP-to-Phone capability which is reasonably priced. Living in Norway, a country with quite low phone prices, even Net2Phone's rather annoying flaws has trouble delivering prices significantly lower than Telenor.

The hunt continues...

Posted by ludvig at August 27, 2002 04:58 PM | TrackBack