international phone calls: save 90% w Internet

Dave Postles (pot@leicester.ac.uk)
Tue, 14 Nov 1995 11:55:15 +0000

N.J.-based International Discount Telecommunications Corp. will
start an Internet telephony service next year that allows
computer users to ring up anyone with a telephone. Other
Internet telephony services require both parties to be online in
order to talk. This new service enables an Internet user to
patch into the local telephone network of the person being
called, for about one tenth the cost of an international phone
call or less. "We expect this is going to totally collapse the
price of international phone calls," says IDT's president.
Meanwhile, IDT's going to have plenty of competition -- the
publisher of NetWatch newsletter is starting a Free World Dialup
experimental service, similar to IDT's, and a number of other
companies are starting PC-to-PC services. (Wall Street Journal
10 Nov 95 B7A x Edupage)

Europe Online, sponsored by the Burda publishing group in
Germany, Pearson PLC (publisher of the Financial Times), and some
private investors based in Luxembourg, will be launched
mid-December. A rival service from Bertelsmann, the German
publishing and entertainment conglomerate, is expected to launch
the end of the current month, as a joint venture with America
Online. (Financial Times 10 Nov 95 p16 x Edupage)

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