here's an assessment of the Internet calling options from some of the
leading telecommunications companies.  personally, I'm going to wait until
they get the bugs worked out in their business systems and the technology.

Kelly



the Wall Street Journal

December 28, 2004; Page D1

Cranky Consumer


    The Battle to Be Your Internet Phone Provider

As Major Carriers Jump In, We Test Customer Service;

How to Keep Your Old Number

    By SHAWN YOUNG Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


    Enticed by the cost savings, hundreds of thousands of people are
experimenting with making phone calls over the Internet -- and many are
ditching their conventional phone service altogether.

    A growing list of companies now offer Internet calling, known as voice
over Internet protocol, or VOIP . In addition to start-up companies such
as Vonage Holdings Corp., big phone and cable companies such as AT&T
Corp., Verizon Communications Inc. and Time Warner Inc. have jumped into
the business. SBC Communications Inc., the nation's second-largest local
phone company (by revenue) after Verizon, also has announced plans to join
the fray.

    As the competition heats up, prices are falling. Some of the big
providers have cut their rates twice in the past six months. Most
providers sell the service for a flat rate, ranging from $20 to $40 a
month, that includes unlimited local and long-distance calling. That is
about a third to half the price of comparable conventional phone service.

    SWITCHING TO VOIP Internet calling is becoming increasingly popular.
Some details on the nascent service:

    . A growing list of companies now offer it.

    . Unlimited local and long-distance calling generally costs about a
third to half the price of a typical conventional phone service.

    . Prices continue to fall. There have been two rate cuts in the past
six months.

    See a chart of how the services stack up.

    By the end of this year, one million people are expected to be making
calls via the Internet, up from slightly more than 100,000 at the end of
2003. The number of VOIP customers is forecast to triple annually for the
next five years on average, according to Gartner Inc., a research firm.

    To see how easy it is to make the switch, we tested five of the
largest and most popular Internet-calling service providers: Vonage, AT&T,
Cablevision Systems Inc., Verizon and Primus Telecom Inc.

    The good news first: In most cases, we found that setting up
Internet-based phone service isn't much more complicated than plugging in
an answering machine. To get VOIP , customers have to have a high-speed
Internet connection and a touch-tone phone. The service provider will
furnish an adapter, which connects the phone to your cable or digital
subscriber line modem.

    Customer service was a mixed bag. The Verizon representative we spoke
with kept talking about a router, which is the key component in a home
computer network. So we asked if we needed a home network to use the
service. He was stumped. "A router is, like, a box," he said hesitantly.
(The correct answer is that, yes, a router is required by Verizon, though
not all services require one.)

    Vonage customers have complained of long waits to speak to
customer-service reps. In our test, we got recordings saying customer
service was simply unavailable. The company says it is doubling the number
of customer-service reps.

    One major drawback is that the service won't work if there is a power
failure or Internet outage. We learned this the hard way when a storm
knocked out our Cablevision phone and Internet service for four days.

    The easiest way to sign up for VOIP service is online. Generally,
Internet calling will serve only one phone in the house, though some
carriers will wire the whole house, or help you do it yourself. Others
suggest getting a cordless phone system with a base station that feeds
multiple extensions.

    The greatest potential savings from Internet calling are available to
people who get their Internet service from a cable company. But they have
to be willing to drop their conventional phone service altogether, and get
VOIP through a lower-priced carrier such as AT&T or Vonage. Consumers with
a DSL Internet provider usually don't have the option of cutting off their
traditional phone service because the phone line also carries their Web
connection.

    Another plus with VOIP is that customers usually can pick any area
code they want and can take the service with them when they move or
travel.

    Internet calling isn't hassle-free, particularly for customers who
want to keep their existing phone numbers. To do that, they need to get a
temporary number and wait a few weeks to be able to move the old number to
the new service -- sometimes, they can't move their old number to their
VOIP line. Also, 911 operators typically can't tell where a call from a
VOIP user is coming from, so callers have to announce their locations
during emergency calls.

    Among Internet-calling providers, AT&T has been particularly
aggressive in pushing its VOIP service, having spent millions of dollars
advertising it on TV. The company has some appealing phone features, such
as the ability to program the service to ring several numbers --
simultaneously or in sequence -- if nobody picks up at home. AT&T also
lets customers preselect (on its Web site) phone numbers that they want to
send straight through to voice mail.

    The service does have its downsides. In order to maintain voice
quality, AT&T sometimes slows the Internet connection when a customer
tries to do bandwidth-hogging Web-based tasks while also talking on the
phone. We discovered this when we tried to upload photos and
simultaneously use the phone.

    Not Storm-Proof

    With Cablevision, a technician spent about an hour setting up our
cable TV, Internet and phone service. The service was hobbled by the fact
that the cable running into our house was worn out. Then, a severe
rainstorm resulted in a four-day outage -- which also laid bare a major
weakness with Cablevision's customer service. Service for telephone, TV
and Internet are handled separately, so we had to make multiple calls to
report what was really one problem. Cablevision says our experience wasn't
typical.

    One attraction with VOIP is that subscribers get a slew of advanced
features that aren't available with conventional phone service. You can,
for example, have an e-mail sent to you instantly when someone leaves you
a voice mail, and then listen to that voicemail on your computer. (You
click on it, and it plays.) Most services also include: immediate logs of
incoming and outgoing calls and a phone book with click-to-dial features.

    Echo-Chamber Effect

    It took only a few minutes to set up our Verizon service. We called
for help twice, and both times the customer reps bent over backward to
assist. One even made a follow-up call to make sure we were OK.

    But while the voice quality on the calls was fine most of the time, it
faltered badly when we tried to use the phone during a photo upload. The
result was an echo-chamber effect. Verizon says customers can have the
company make an adjustment to their connection.

    Though we didn't have any service snags with Vonage, the company's Web
site had several alerts to customers about problems with sound quality and
voicemail. The company says it has since addressed those problems.

    Where the Vonage service excelled was with its easy-to-use features.
We particularly liked the option of replaying just the last 10 seconds of
a voice-mail message, which is when most people leave their call-back
numbers. It also had the clearest, most informative billing statements.

    Signing up for Primus's Lingo service was a chore. We provided our
information online three times and kept getting messages that there was a
problem. A lengthy chat with customer service failed to solve the problem.
The representative promised to call back the next day, but didn't. When we
called two days later, there was no record of our earlier attempt to sign
up. A Primus spokeswoman said such problems are rare.

    Later, we encountered some other bugs in the company's system. Some of
our U.S. calls were repeatedly directed to the wrong number, and we
weren't able to complete calls to cellphones in Europe that sailed through
with our regular phone. Primus says some foreign carriers block calls from
Internet-based services.

    Still New

    Because VOIP is so new, ordering the service by simply calling the
number on back of your phone or cable bill may not be the best way to go.
One of our testers, for example, wanted to try out her cable provider,
Time-Warner.

    "Say what?" asked a cheery but perplexed sales agent when we called to
inquire about Time-Warner's VOIP service in Brooklyn, N.Y. "What do you
mean by phone service over the Internet?" she asked. Time Warner says that
the agent wasn't up to speed on the service because it isn't offered in
our neighborhood yet.

    ---- Scott Hensley and Almar Latour contributed to this article. .

E-mail
[log in to unmask]

    SERVICE: AT&T CallVantage
MONTHLY CHARGE: $29.99, plus taxes and fees*
PRO: Some excellent features, including the ability to preselect phone
numbers that get sent directly to voice mail
CON: Setup was more complicated than some others
COMMENT: AT&T sometimes maintains the voice quality by slowing the
Internet-connection speed, which can affect some Web tasks.

    SERVICE: Cablevision Optimum Voice
MONTHLY CHARGE: $34.95, including taxes and fees
PRO: Technician installed the service for free. Company will connect every
phone in a house if requested.
CON: While phone, Internet and TV service are bundled, we had to call the
phone and Internet
departments separately when a storm killed our connection.
COMMENT: Pricier than some other providers

    SERVICE: Verizon VoiceWing
MONTHLY CHARGE: $34.95, plus taxes and fees of $8.78
PRO: Customer service was live and responsive -- a rep even followed up with
a call to make sure everything was OK.
CON: Serious echo effect when we talked on the phone while posting photos to
the Internet
COMMENT: Company has recently improved its VOIP features, but it's still
pricier than comparable services.

    SERVICE: Vonage Digital Voice
MONTHLY CHARGE: $24.99, plus taxes and fees of $2.25
PRO: User-friendly Web site makes it easy to customize the service
CON: Had trouble reaching customer service
COMMENT: Vonage has the clearest online billing statements of the companies
we tested.

    SERVICE: Primus Telecom Lingo
MONTHLY CHARGE: $19.95, including taxes  and fees**
PRO: By far the cheapest service -- and it includes free calls
to Western Europe
CON: Some calls to overseas cellphones wouldn't go through even though we
had no trouble making them on our regular phone.
COMMENT: Low price made us willing to put up with balky customer service
and the occasional failed call.

    *We paid $19.99 with taxes and fees of $3.75 because we signed up
during a promotion.

    ** First month is free.


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