Internet Telephony Soon to End
Written: May 02 '01 (Updated May 02 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Free Phone calls in the US.
Cons: 5 minute limit, and registration is required.
The Bottom Line: Net2Phone's service is not found to be great. However, it is great for a backup when Dialpad is down.
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| fisps's Full Review: Net2Phone |
Net2Phone's free phone calling service was first was established in 1999. Net2Phone started its service when free Internet telephony was still "hot" on the Internet. They opened, a little after Dialpad (the world's first free Internet telephony service) was launched.
Back In 1999
After Dialpad's, and Net2Phone's launch, many other companies opened their doors as well.
The companies were not the only people that were excited about the creation of free long distance phone calls in the USA. The people were also thrilled. Back then; it was a new "fad" on the Internet.
Anyone who had a microphone, speakers, and a computer could call there friends, and family absolutely free of charge. As everyone knows, nothing on the Internet that costs the companies money to create is "free." Of course, it may be free to the user, but not to the advertisers. The new companies had to rely on banner ads and pop-ups to keep their service free of charge.
Back when the new companies have emerged to offer free telephony, the advertising industry was strong. When they first started, companies actually made money. They continued strong. Until a few years later, the advertising industry started falling. Advertisers would not pay as much to the affiliate, and the visitor would not click on ads as often.
Present Time: 2001
Since the advertising industry is really weak at the moment, almost all the free telephony companies have either shut down or have turned to pay.
Only two well known ones remain. Net2Phone, and Dialpad have tended to survive this, up to now. These two companies, however, have changed a lot. Net2Phone has limited the phone calls only up to five minutes. Dialpad has become very unstable. It is obvious that these two services are soon to die.
Net2Phone offers other services, and their site is loaded with pop-ups. That might be the reason why they are still alive. As I mentioned before, they limit the calls to only five minutes per call. You are free to redial after the five minutes have elapsed. That can be a really big pain, though.
With Net2Phone you have to download software. The software is quite small (about 900Kbytes). Registration is also required. The registration form asks various questions. People that are concerned about there privacy might not like the registration form you have to fill out with Net2Phone. Net2Phone also sends you an email once in a while, if you give them permission to contact you.
Net2Phone also offers a call waiting service. With call waiting you can get an answering machine to answer calls for you, when your phone line is busy. You only need one phone line to do this. Call waiting from Net2Phone is free, however your phone company may require you to pay a fee for forwarding.
Another service that Net2Phone offers is international calling. International calling is not free, but has very reasonable rates. The sound quality of international calling, is quite poor though. It might be a better idea to just use your local phone company. Even in the US, the sound quality of Net2Phone’s service is not great. It is better then Dialpad’s but is not too good. 56K users may find Net2Phone’s sound quality to be great. However, users with high bandwidth connections (such as cable, and DSL) would be better of using Dialpad.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
fisps
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Member: Alex Levin
Location: Fayetteville, NY
Reviews written: 24
Trusted by: 12 members
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