[WEB4LIB] Long distance calls over net

[TMGB]

There was an article that just came out Monday on ZDNET concerning the
telephone companies and NetPhones.
The article at ZDNET's Anchor Desk: "Why Free Net Phone Calls Keep
Telcos Up at Night ( And How They Plan to Quash Them)"

http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2585733,00.html

>From a link in the above article you can go to a PC Magazine article
that reviews 7 telephony solutions:

http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4161,2574032,00.html

PC Magazine's two top rated products were dialpad.com and MS NetMeeting
3.0.  I had already tried dialpad before knowing of this article.  I
went on the net and called my office phone.  Forgetting my limited sound
engineering background, I answered using the speaker phone and in effect
had a digital echoplex for those that remember or know what an echoplex
is.  The quality of sound was very good although I could hear a definite
lag time from the moment I spoke into my sound card microphone and when
it came back out on the telephone.  I then called a friend of mine
toward the eastern part of North Carolina and it didn't matter if I used
speakers or headphone on my end, he said he could hear himself echo back
through the phone.  The microphone on my end may have been set a little
too sensitive.  This is something you can experiment with in your own
library between offices.  Dialpad is free, or at least was the last time
I used it, and runs in a java applet on your PC.

Also reviewed by PC Magazine was Internet Phone Release 5, Net2Phone,
PhoneFree, Speak Freely 7.1, and WebPhone.

Thomas


Lin Light wrote:
> 
> I had a staff person bring up an interesting idea.  We are on the Dynix
> system and use TeleCircII to contact patrons with information about
> thier overdues, holds, etc,.  We have some patrons that we must call
> that are long distance.  Well, Dwayne, the person who makes the calls,
> asked if we could try to use the NET to make the long distance calls.
> Equipment is cheap, and he uses it at home.  What's the thought on this?
> 
> ----
> Lin Light
> Head of
> Technical Services/Automation
> Herrick District Library
> 300 S. River Ave.
> Holland, MI 49423
> llight at lakeland.lib.mi.us
> Voice-616.355.3727
> Fax-616.355.1426

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Thomas McMillan Grant Bennett      Appalachian State University
Computer Consultant III            University Library
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