WHEN is an international phone call not a phone call? Is it when the instrument at each end is not an ordinary telephone but a personal computer? Or when the gaps and delays in the conversation make it sound like the phones of yesteryear? Or when it costs not a penny more than a local phone call to your Internet service provider?
The question is no longer academic. It could soon be debated in US and even Irish courtrooms. This month 130 US long distance phone companies called on the US government to ban software and hardware that allows voice conversations over the Net. America's Carriers Telecommunication Association (ACTA) said in its complaint to the Federal Communications Commission that Internet telephone services should be subject to the same regulations as other long distance phone companies.
"It's time to get a hold of this now ... I want these guys stopped from selling illegal telecommunication service," said Charles Helein of ACTA.
He said that ACTA member companies have to comply with state and federal regulations governing their business and they must set rates that pay for the maintenance of the national telephone infrastructure.
Quality of service
Helein argued that if Net telephone services became widespread, they would hit the incomes of conventional long distance phone companies. That would mean an overall decline in the quality of telephone service for all Americans. "The government is not going to sit still and see that kind of dislocation go by, because somebody wants to get free phone calls on their computers," Helein said.
Until recently the telephone companies were not worried. Using a microphone, sound card and speakers to turn a PC into a voice communication tool was possible, but not very satisfactory. Early Net phone programs allowed only "half duplex" conversation. One party at a time could speak and there was a pause between one person speaking and the other party's response.
The architecture of the Internet doesn't help either. Messages, whether they're e mail notes, Web pages, or software downloads, are broken into small packets of data. The packets may travel by different routes and arrive out of sequence or with some packets missing. The receiving computer can reassemble the messages from the packets that arrive and request retransmission of the ones that don't make it. Network congestion or faulty links can mean delays of seconds, minutes or even hours. These problems don't matter too much with e mail, but make voice calls almost impossible at times.
A half dozen companies now market Internet phone software and they have shown great flair in overcoming technical problems to make Internet phone calls usable. The sound quality is still far worse than an ordinary telephone call, but over 20,000 people now regularly use the Internet for voice calls, according to International Data, a US consultancy and research group. Ever greater compression of the digital voice signal helps to overcome sluggishness in the network and improve sound quality.
There are also compatibility problems. A WebPhone user can not talk to a FreeTel user. Even IBM compatible and Apple Macintosh versions of the same program may not communicate. But this is changing as this use of the Internet becomes more mainstream. Microsoft and Intel, with the support of about 100 other companies, have just announced a new set of Net communications standards. This "dial tone for the Internet" will provide means for audio and video software from different manufacturers to work together.
The two biggest companies in personal computing are making it clear that they take this technology seriously. They are establishing standards because they feel voice and video on the Net are attractive and viable enough to fuel future sales of their main products software and microchips.
Netscape, which completely dominates the market for "browser" programs to access the World Wide Web, says it will include telephone features in the next release of its Navigator browser. Microsoft has similar plans for its Internet Explorer browser.
Others line up
Other developments on the way make it clear that the Internet versus telephone company battle is only warming up:
. NetPhonic Communications of California is offering a "voice browser" to turn Web pages into speech. Web On Call sits on a Web server and reads Web pages over the phone to callers who do not have access to a personal computer.
. One of the pioneers of Net phone software, the Israeli company VocalTee, is ready to launch software to allow calls which originate on a PC to be patched into the ordinary phone system and call ordinary telephone numbers.
. An organisation called Free World Dialup is looking for volunteers to set up a phone line and PC in every city to make technology like VocalTee's universal. In the US at least, where most local calls are free, they hope to have a substantial network in place within months.
The technical problems are being rapidly overcome, but the eat of regulation remains.
Writing in the Financial Times, Tim Jackson was scathing about the ACTA move in the US: "If they wish to survive into the next century, phone companies should give up the idea of having Net telephony outlawed. It would be about as sensible as banning fax machines on the grounds that it is the job of post offices, not phone companies, to carry letters."
The promoters of Net phone software are also unrepentant. Are we hurting their ability to charge you $10 for a long distance phone call? Tough bananas, said Harvey Kaufman, vice president of NetSpeak, which produces WebPhone. Their concern over this is ridiculous, because this is not going to replace the conventional telephone."
Irish services
Irish Internet service providers are wary of the issue and are certainly not promoting voice calls as part of their service to customers. Some have tried to block customers from using phone programs. They are not licensed by the Department of Communications to provide voice telephony. Telecom Eireann is, with an effective monopoly of licensed voice services.
There is, however, a grey area. Once conversation has been turned into digital data by the sound card in a PC, it is functionally the same as an e mail message, or a Web page - which the service providers and their customers are quite entitled to send over the Net. So does this constitute "telephony" for licensing purposes?
Among the service providers, there is anger that Telecom Eireann is allowed to compete with them, by offering Internet services, while protected by a government licensed monopoly in its own area.
None of the service providers seems keen to provide a test case by going after voice business. But the ways of using the Internet as an alternative to international telephone services are becoming ever easier and more reliable. And you can't argue with the price.