April 1998

InnoMedia, Inc.
4800 Great America Parkway
Suite 400
Santa Clara, CA 95054
Ph: 408-327-0265; Fx: 408-562-3545
Web site: www.innomedia.com 

Free long-distance calls for everyone: that’s a big part of the Internet telephony message. The best part of "free" is that you don’t need a computer to take advantage of the savings. Desktop boxes that convert toll calls to free Internet calls are currently being introduced to market, and you don’t have to mingle with the digerati to learn to use them. SOHOs take note: if you call specific long-distance numbers often, you need one of these boxes.

We tested InnoMedia’s InfoTalk. It only costs $199 per unit, but only works if each party has one. Each party also needs an Internet service provider, which usually costs less than $20 a month.

Here’s the concept: First, the answering machine-sized unit has a one-time setup. It’s programmed through the keypad of your telephone — any touch-tone phone will work — with your name, e-mail address, ISP login name and password, and your ISP’s primary and secondary DNS numbers. You also program in the number that you’re calling from and, for optional "phonebook" entries, the numbers that you plan to call.

To use the system, you make a "normal" call to the second party. Once the callee picks up the line, either party presses a button that tells the unit’s built-in analog modem to put the original call on hold and call the ISP. Once connected, the ISPs exchange IP addresses, disconnect the initial toll call, and contact each other using the Internet. The original caller pays for the initial toll call, which lasts just a few minutes, and each party pays for the call to their Internet provider, which is usually a free, local call. When the InfoTalk units are switched off or not in use, they become transparent and the phone acts normally.

INSTALLATION
The InfoTalk setup is as simple as installing an answering machine. One phone line goes to a jack, another goes to a telephone, and a power cord goes to an AC outlet. A power switch, volume switch, and serial port are found on the back of InfoTalk, but if you have a standard ISP, you’ll probably never have to use these features. (They are there for downloading scripts and future software upgrades.) So off we went: plug, plug, plug, switch, and switch. It’s easy, and it took exactly one minute and three seconds.

Configuration was just as easy but a little more tedious. Our InfoTalk units didn’t work the first time because we entered the ISP login name and password in capital letters, forgetting that they’re case sensitive. The manual explains how to create lowercase letters by holding each key down for two seconds before proceeding. For example, to enter the letter "R," you press the "7" key three times. This tells InfoTalk that you want an "R," which is the third character on that number after the "7" and the "P." You then pause for a moment, which tells the unit that you’re ready to enter the next character. For a lowercase "e," you’d hold down the "3" key for a moment, which tells the unit to accept the following characters as lowercase. Then you press the "3" three times, but you get a little "e" instead of a big one. (You’d follow the same procedure to go back to capital letters.) You can also use the asterisk, pound, and zero keys to get symbols.

One thing we liked about setting up InfoTalk was that there are only four buttons on the unit — Escape, Forward, Back, and Enter. The only part we couldn’t immediately figure out about installing this product was a moveable flap on the top rear of the unit. A call to InnoMedia explained it: the top of the box wasn’t big enough to rest a phone on, so they added the pullout flap to create a larger footprint. Unfortunately, this isn’t explained anywhere in the directions, but we quickly realized just how useful this flap is. It also hides the ugly cords snaking out of the back, and the last thing the TMC Labs needs are more cords!

DOCUMENTATION/FEATURES
Except for not mentioning the foot-print flap, we liked InfoTalk’s manual. The first chapter guides you through initial setup, and successive chapters detail setting up options. There’s also a good troubleshooting section, plenty of illustrations, and good detail about downloading ISP scripts and upgrading the built-in software. The manual seemed thin upon first glance, but there’s no need for anything thicker. We also appreciate the large 2 x 20-character LCD display, Year 2000 compliance, and G.729 voice compression. G.723 compression and H.323 compliance are expected with the next version, due sometime this summer.

OPERATIONAL TESTING
Although we only tested our units across our lab, that short distance gave us a reasonable representation of what a call would be like across 4,000 miles. Making successful Internet connections took just a few minutes. The audio wasn’t toll quality, but this probably seemed magnified because we could actually see each other’s lips moving a second before we heard each other’s voice. But in separate rooms across a town or a country, who’d notice?

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
The improved compression and standards compliance are coming, but we’d like to see the price come down. At $199 for one unit, it’s certainly affordable — but we dream of the day when we could get such a product at the local drug store for twenty bucks.

CONCLUSION
Even if you have an Internet-dedicated phone line, most ISPs only let you log in to one machine at a time. So check with your provider if you think you might need to use email or a Web browser while simultaneously making an Internet call. They might have a second user option that’s cheaper than actually paying for a second account. Meanwhile, we’re anxious to try other products of this genre, and see InfoTalk as a step towards wider consumer adoption of voice over the Internet.