BY LAURA GUEVIN
Associate Editor, INTERNET TELEPHONY

The Best Types Of Voice Services Are Free

You hear a lot of talk these days about cheap long-distance rates. Companies, including Internet telephony service providers, offer rates of x.9 cents per minute in a frantic struggle to undercut the competition. But why pay for something you might be able to get for free?

A number of companies are offering free VoIP, voice mail, and other types of messaging services in an effort to attract customers and publicity. On the equipment side, Oki Network Technologies is offering a free 30-day trial of its VoIP gateways to qualified businesses (see Group Publisher Rich Tehrani's write-up of the giveaway). But what about those of us on the user end, who are interested in trialing the services we read about at no charge?

PC-BASED FREEBIES
The importance of free services came into play last month after tornadoes ripped through Oklahoma. In the aftermath of the storms, many residents tried unsuccessfully to make long distance phone calls to family and friends as phone lines were severed or otherwise jammed. However, some were able to place local calls to their ISPs -- like Walt Alexander, who tried frantically to get in touch with his wife Laurie at the Osan Air Force Base in South Korea. Although he could not make a direct long-distance call, Walt made one to his ISP, and logged into his free RocketTalk account.

RocketTalk allows users to send and receive e-mail and voice mail messages throughout the world. Available as a free download, the software offers recording and compression of voice messages, but requires a multimedia computer equipped with sound card, speakers, and microphone. Users must have an Internet connection as well. The RocketTalk service is supported by advertisements and promotions on the software interface.

ICQ (now owned by America Online) provides voice messaging on the new 99a beta version of the instant messaging client. Users may attach recorded voice mail through a plug-in for this free software. Rebel Software also offers the free Voice Mailbox, which enables users to attach compressed voice mail messages to e-mail. Users must have multimedia-enabled computers.

In the faxing realm, .comfax offers a combination of voice mail and fax services that users may access through their e-mail accounts. The MessageClick service assigns a voice mail/fax number to each user, and routes messages and faxes to the user's e-mail account. The company just announced an agreement with Juno Online Services, a company that offers free e-mail service. MessageClick routes messages as e-mail attachments, and voice mail is compressed as Real Audio files.

PHONE-BASED FREEBIES
If you don't want to be bothered with using your PC to make a real-time phone call, you may soon be in luck. Information-Highway.com, Inc., a Canadian ISP, is offering free phone-to-phone long-distance service over IP in Toronto for its paying ISP customers, and has rolled out Internet access in Denver, Dallas, Seattle, and Houston. The company plans to expand its service to other U.S. cities and Asia within the next few months, utilizing a backbone from Level 3 Communications. Free long distance is currently available for Canadian members of the ISP's Executive Club, and will soon be available in the United States for those who subscribe to the ISP.

Still other companies are trying to pump up their sales by offering free giveaways on holidays. IDT Corporation's Net2Phone gave away free domestic phone calls on Mother's Day to all users who are registered on their Web site. Registration and the software download are free, and users can make phone-to-phone calls or use their PCs by calling a toll-free or local number.

And Tornado Electronic Messaging System (TEMS), is offering a 30-day trial of its unified messaging solution. TEMS allows users to access voice mail, pages, e-mail, and faxes through a unified inbox -- in either voice or text format. Voice mail messages are converted to text and vice versa through the company's messaging platform.

In Alaska, the competition over Internet service and VoIP has heated up in recent months. Long-distance telephone service provider GCI began offering its customers free Internet access in February, and ISPs had to act quickly to save their businesses. Several ISPs formed Alaska Internet Access, creating a network for VoIP services as an alternative to regular long-distance service. Others are opting to implement free VoIP offerings on their own.

If nothing else, free phone and messaging services allow us to trial particular flavors of technology before we decide what’s right for us. Free phone-to-phone VoIP service is certainly a way to acquaint the uninitiated with this new technology, and allows users to determine if they can put up with the latency and quality issues that are still inherent in this form of communication. I know I would want to try VoIP and voice messaging before making an investment to multimedia-enable my PC.

The services here are just the tip of the iceberg, especially when it comes to pre-recorded, compressed voice, which is much easier (for the time being) for the masses to digest than real-time VoIP. Take advantage of the various freebies being offered on the Web -- they won’t be around for long as IP voice messaging continues to gain popularity and acceptance.

Laura Guevin welcomes your comments at lguevin@tmcnet.com.