NYtimes on " 'net telphony"

["Omegaman" <omega@bigeasy.com>]

An article I found on Internet Telephony today in the New 
York Times.  

reference:
<http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/0805telephony.html>

article also contained a diagram of a traditional Point-to-point 
synchronous phone call and a packet-switched Internet call which 
shoed pieces of a sentence being transferred over multiple routes.

"         _ Free Long Distance
              Phone Calls! (Computer Extra)_

          By PETER H. LEWIS 

               Sometimes Internet technology moves faster than the
               speed of sound. 

          Nearly 400 Intel Corp. engineers were waiting for Brian
          Frank to stage a demonstration of Internet telephones last
          week at a business meeting in Oregon, when suddenly his
          laptop computer started ringing. 

          Frank, a summer intern, had just finished loading new
          software that would let him place a phone call from his
          laptop to an associate's PC backstage. But before he could
          make the call, someone in Norway had seen Frank's network
          connection pop up on an Internet phone directory on the
          World Wide Web and dialed him up. "

[..snip..]

        
"        For the Intel engineers, it was an industry wake-up call.
          Hitherto a hacker's hobby, the use of microphones and
          computers to place phone calls, send faxes and transmit
          pager signals over the Internet now seems ready to emerge as
          a serious business opportunity. "

[..snip..]

"        Technical drawbacks still keep Internet telephony from being
          a true substitute for the good old, reliable telephone
          network. And yet, the number of regular Internet telephone
          users is expected to rise from fewer than 400,000 last year
          to 16 million by 1999, according to a forecast from the
          research company International Data Corp. By that year, IDC
          predicts, Internet telephony could constitute a $500 million
          market. 

          Beyond cheap phone calls, the possible applications include:
          

          -- Catalogue shopping on the World Wide Web, where the
          customer could speak live with a sales agent. 

          -- Work-team software that would enable groups working
          collaboratively on documents via the Internet to converse
          about the project, too. 

          -- Adding voice capabilities to multiplayer computer games
          like "Doom" or "Quake," so that teammates could coach one
          another and jeer the opposition. "

[..snip..]
  
"         In fact, Intel and Microsoft late last month jointly
          announced a set of technical standards that are intended to
          promote compatibility among various makes of hardware and
          software used in Internet telephony. "

[..snip..]

"         "A lot of people look at Internet telephony as a replacement
          or alternative for long-distance service, and that's the
          most obvious use for it today," said Frederic H. Yeomans,
          marketing manager for Intel's Internet and communications
          group in Hillsboro, Ore. But Yeomans said the technology was
          advancing so quickly that new applications, possibly ones
          not yet imagined, would inevitably arise. "
(hype?  You make the call..)

[..snip..]

"        Telephone companies appear to be divided over how to respond
          to the technological challenges. 

          "Everyone would agree it's a compelling, alternative form of
          communication, and we're excited about it," said Mark
          Fisher, vice president for Pacific Bell Internet Services in
          San Francisco, a unit of the regional Bell holding company
          Pacific Telesis. "

[..snip..]

"         Other, smaller phone companies are not as optimistic, and
          are mounting a legal and lobbying challenge to try to halt
          competition from the computer industry. "

[..snip..]
          NYT-08-04-96 1932EDT 
         Copyright 1996 The New York Times Company 

...

What follows is more hype about a "killer app" that will bring this 
technology to the forefront. 

Little is said about current bandwitdth limitations or PC 
technology limitations.  Nothing is said of crypto technology either.

me
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