The Internet for communications 207 Internet phone release 5 Internet Phone by VocalTec enables PC users to make regular full-duplex telephone calls over the Internet to any other Internet connected PC in the world, providing the caller signs up with an internet telephony provider (ITSP) which supports the VocalTec system. As is the case with FreeTel, functions include some of the amenities of a full- featured telephone such as caller ID, call waiting, muting and blocking. In addition to this, it is possible to introduce live motion video, which enables the recipient to actually see the caller without additional hardware required. It also supports audio conferencing with up to 100 people, ‘white boarding’ which enables the sharing of documents, photos and drawings with other users, and text chatting via the PC keyboard. Netspeak web phone Like Internet phone, Netspeak Webphone offers voice, video and data communications over the Internet and any other TCP/IP-based networks with all the functions of a top-of- the range conventional telephone as well as videophone support using the H.263 standard. WebPhone uses TrueSpeech G.723.1, G.711 GSM voice compression (as used in cellular phones) to overcome the bandwidth limitation inherent to Internet communication. 13.6.3 PC to phone Net2Phone Net2Phone is an innovative software product system from IDT. Net2Phone is a service that allows the user of an Internet connected multimedia PC or laptop to place calls from anywhere in the world to any regular phone in the world using a dedicated Internet exchange in the USA. Users are not limited to PC–PC technology which requires both users to have access to multimedia PCs and to be connected to the Internet at the same time, either by coincidence or prearrangement. Only the caller needs a PC with an Internet connection and can use any ISP in order to make the call. The cost of calls varies, but is on average less than 10% of a normal phone call. In addition to this, calls to any 1–800 number in the United States are free. Figure 13.1 Net2phone (courtesy of Net2Phone) 208 Practical TCP/IP and Ethernet Networking 13.6.4 Phone to phone Aplio Aplio offers a Voice over IP service by means of a small stand-alone box that inter- connects regular telephones across the Internet, enabling the calling party to talk over the phone using the Internet instead of the traditional long distance carrier. This approach requires no computer, no Internet phone software, no specific carriers, and no gateways/routers. Connection is accomplished by simply plugging the phone into the Aplio box and connecting the latter to a regular telephone wall jack. Once contact is established with the other party, the sender presses a button on the Aplio phone and hangs up. In less than 45 seconds, the sender’s phone will ring after which he can pick it up and continue with the conversation. The only difference is that this part of the communication is via the Internet, hence a slight (half-second) delay. A disadvantage of this approach is the cost of the interface unit (around $250, mid 2001) as well as the fact that an Aplio interface is required on both sides. This could, however, soon be offset against a reduction in long distance telephone bills, especially for parties who have to conduct regular long-distance calls between two specific locations. 13.6.5 Mixed PC/phone to mixed PC/phone with Intranet PBX NetPhone IPBX NetPhone IPBX is a scalable intranet based PBX (private branch exchange) featuring amongst other things automatic call distribution, call accounting, and least-cost routing. Businesses can use their existing PBX resources for voice communication between corporate locations, bypassing the PSTN by using the Internet to provide a cost-effective means of communication. The NetPhone IPBX supports up to 96 extensions and offers a fall-back feature which routes all calls back to the PSTN during an Internet failure which means that the telephone communication system would always be up and running. This system enables users: • To identify callers before picking up the phone • To access, in real-time, applications containing information regarding the caller when the phone rings (such as the location of a specific parcel in the case of a freight shipping company) • To return phone calls without having to look up numbers • To return calls to prospective customers who left no messages • To view, prioritize and sort through voice mail on the PC screen • To transfer, park or forward calls under control of a mouse This system is built around dedicated hardware such as IP telephony gateways and communication servers, which means that it would typically be deployed in larger organizations because of the capital outlay involved. This expenditure can, however, be justified in terms of cost savings in telephone bills. 13.6.6 Incoming calls with call waiting By mid 2001, VocalTec plans to introduce Internet phone call waiting. With the rise in new Internet-based business applications, users are spending more and more time connected to the Internet. These on-line connections are tying up phone lines, preventing employees from receiving business related telephone calls. This might lead to limiting the The Internet for communications 209 revenue, which service providers can generate through call termination. VocalTec Internet phone call waiting will solve the problem by enabling Internet service providers to provide a virtual second line service to Internet connected customers. This will alert on-line users to incoming calls (including caller ID information) from regular phones. Using Internet Phone Lite software running on a multimedia PC, the subscriber can then accept the call without disconnecting from the Internet. 13.6.7 Outgoing calls with regular phone through PC Net2Phone Pro, a product by the developers of Net2Phone, enables the user to plug a standard telephone into a multimedia PC and thereby conducting conversations over the Internet as if through a normal POTS connection. 13.6.8 Live voice communication with customers via web page Click2Talk from IDT is a product, which adds on to the Net2Phone software, described above, and enables a prospective client, browsing a web page, to gain real-time access to the service provider by phone, by simply clicking the Click2Talk button on the screen. This of course implies that the prospective customer is browsing via a multimedia PC. 13.6.9 Secure phones PGPfone (PGP = pretty good privacy) permits computer owners who have modems or connections to the Internet to use their computers as secure phones. PGP software is available from Massachusetts Institute of Technology by WWW only, or via PGP Inc. Unfortunately the legal distribution of PGP is restricted to US citizens or persons resident in the US only. 13.7 Paging 13.7.1 SMS (short message service) Whereas the following two examples are by no means representative of the whole range of products, they nevertheless give a good idea of what can be achieved. The first example of such a service is SMS via e-mail offered by Mobile Data Systems. SMS is a 116-character that can be sent to and from a cellular phone. Mobile originating SMS messages (MO) are messages generated from a cellular phone, whilst mobile terminating SMS messages (MT) are messages sent to a cellular phone. In many instances, an SMS message can be a better method of communication than voice for the following reasons: • The message does not disturb the recipient • Messages can be stored for later use • The message will be delivered as soon as the recipient is connected to the cellular network • The sender can receive e-mail notification whether the message was received or not (recipient out of range, phone off) There are many applications for SMS, including but not limited to the following: • Messages can be generated and disseminated automatically, for example in the case of network or process alarms 210 Practical TCP/IP and Ethernet Networking • Product information (price lists etc) can be sent to sales staff • Notification messages can be used to notify users of voice mail, e-mail, staff meetings etc • Alarm alerts can be sent directly to a support technician’s phone and because notification of the delivery of the message is provided, problems can be escalated to other technicians’ or managers’ phones if the alarms are not cleared timeously • Customer care related information e.g. reminding customers of account balances, credit limits surpassed, product launches • Messages sent by operator based messaging centers to staff phones informing them to contact clients (the contact phone numbers can also be forwarded in these messages) For security PGP (pretty good privacy) is used to authenticate messages submitted. Users must be able to sign e-mail with a PGP signature and will be required to submit their PGP public key on registration. 13.7.2 DAJDsock Another interesting messaging program is a powerful TCP/IP testing tool, DAJDsock, which is available as freeware. DAJDsock is setup with the socket names (that is IP addresses and associated port numbers of specific critical processes running on servers). At regular predefined intervals it interrogates these sockets, and if a proper response is not received it alerts the system administrator either by sending an e-mail message or by automatically placing a message (similar to SMS) on his beeper. 13.8 Voice mail 13.8.1 PC to PC There are several commercially available software packages which perform this function. A voice message is recorded on a multimedia PC in a digital format and transmitted as an e-mail message to another machine. Internet VoiceMail Internet VoiceMail is a program, which allows transmission of voice mail over the Internet to anyone with an e-mail address. The software includes a voice mail player so that even recipients without voicemail software on their computer may still hear the message. The software is fairly inexpensive and an evaluation version can be downloaded free of charge. QualComm PureVoice/SmartRate The technology used here is a standard in CDMA cellular technology and will also be included in upcoming versions of Eudora Software. PureVoice and SmartRate are voice-coding technologies developed for use with wireless telephony applications, and in particular digital cellular telephones. However, they also work well with e-mail. The resultant compressed file is ten times smaller than a corresponding .wav files. For example, a 1 Megabyte .wav file would take 7 minutes to transmit using a 28.8 kbps modem. By comparison, a PureVoice file (.qcp) would be less than 100 kilobytes and take less than 45 seconds to transmit, using the same modem The Internet for communications 211 speed. Using the SmartRate technology will reduce the storage to 60 kilobytes and transmit time to 30 seconds! Despite this severe compression, PureVoice and SmartRate compare favorably with conventional pulse code modulation systems. In comparing these new technologies with established standard voice encoding systems viz. PCM and ADPCM by means of subjective mean opinion scoring (MOS) techniques, SmartRate and PureVoice either equaled or outperformed their rivals despite running at about one-eighth the bit rate of their rivals! The virtues of PureVoice and SmartRate are being extolled here, not in order to promote these particular products, but to highlight the tremendous strides that have been made in curtailing bandwidth requirements in VoIP applications and yet maintaining a high-perceived voice quality. 13.9 Fax 13.9.1 Fax machine/e-mail to fax machine/e-mail VocalTec markets a product by the name of PASSaFAX, a real time Internet faxing device. According to Communications News 1998, the average Fortune 500 company spends over $15-million yearly on fax transmissions. To reduce this financial burden, IP (Internet protocol) provides a cost effective way to route faxes by using existing data networks. The system includes SNMP based management and configuration. It uses store and forward IP faxing based on the ITU and IETF standards, which allows fax-to-fax, fax to e-mail and e-mail to fax transmissions. This particular system requires hardware in the form of a PASSaFAX module with built-in modem(s) and PBX emulation. Fax machines connect either directly onto the PASSaFAX unit, or to the PASSaFAX unit via the PSTN or PBX. The PASSaFAX unit, in turn, connects onto the Internet. 13.9.2 Fax machine to fax machine Net2Fax uses a conventional fax machine plugged into the phone connector of the user’s modem and the Net2Phone software-dialing interface. Once the connection has been established, the fax machine’s start button is depressed and the transmission takes place in the normal way. 13.10 Video conferencing The traditional approach has been a ‘brute force’ methodology using high-speed switched data networks such as ISDN, T1/E1 and Switched 56. ISDN, for example, provides a 64 kbps bandwidth per ‘B’ channel and several channels can be utilized simultaneously in order to obtain the required bandwidth. Modern technology, however, allows systems like those described hereunder to send full motion video across a LAN without bogging down other data traffic. 13.10.1 Video/audio/document conferencing VidCall is a product, which delivers video, voice and document conferencing to people around the globe via the Internet. Not only can users participate in shared workspace activities on the computer screen, but they can see live, scalable video of the person(s) . (courtesy of Net2Phone) 208 Practical TCP/IP and Ethernet Networking 13.6.4 Phone to phone Aplio Aplio offers a Voice over IP service by means of a small stand-alone box that inter- connects. following: • Messages can be generated and disseminated automatically, for example in the case of network or process alarms 210 Practical TCP/IP and Ethernet Networking • Product information. includes SNMP based management and configuration. It uses store and forward IP faxing based on the ITU and IETF standards, which allows fax-to-fax, fax to e-mail and e-mail to fax transmissions.