The Hindu : National : 2006: the year of VOIP

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 16, 2006

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National

2006: the year of VOIP

Anand Parthasarathy

When landlines meet Net telephony

Bangalore: Sometimes it takes a small push to shove technology from the corporate world into the consumer mainstream.

For Internet telephony — or Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP), to give it the proper technical name — that push might have been delivered, when Microsoft used the Consumer Electronics Show at Las Vegas last week, to announce that it was jumping into the VOIP phone arena.

In association with Netherlands-based electronics giant Philips, it announced a new Dual Phone, which combined the functions of a normal landline phone with the cheaper Internet telephony option.

Customers, initially in Europe, South America and select countries in Asia, will have three calling choices: they can make free PC-to-PC calls through Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger, the new `avatar' of MSN Messenger; They can use a low cost PC-to-Phone service, by subscribing to one of the web-based Internet Protocol (IP) phones services, among whom, MCI has a number of Indian affiliates; or they can make normal landline calls through local providers.

The device has to be plugged into the two lines: the landline telephone jack and the Universal Serial Bus (USB) jack of a PC or laptop. It uses a new technology called Digitally Enhanced Cordless Telephone that smoothens over the noise normally associated with IP telephones.

Microsoft is only the latest to harness Net telephony for consumer markets. The leader is Skype (owned by eBay) that recently added video capability to its own IP telephone offerings.

In India soon

While Indians can already make PC-to-PC calls using Skype and other free services, or even PC-to-Phone services 2006 may see the large scale availability of dual-use hand sets which obviate the need of using a PC.

Cisco the world leader in the enterprise voice market recently announced that it had sold one lakh IP telephone sets in India, since it debuted the product four years ago. The company has concentrated on providing the technology to corporates.

However such handsets, as well as others from players like D-Link, are increasingly available to individual users, usually subsidised by companies who offer the international IP phone prepaid cards.

Many Indians are discovering the benefits of a single handset that can switch seamlessly from landline to IP line at a price that is only a little more than that of a standard cordless phone.

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