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lets users locate other Internet Phone
users via e-mail addresses, Internet
Phone addresses, or Internet Protocol (IP)
addresses. Users even can make direct
connections when they are not online to
Internet Phone servers or if they have
dynamic, or changing, IP addresses.
Another feature using Web links lets
users call others while browsing the
Web. They can also receive calls from
their own page. For frequently called
locations, users can create desktop
icons by dragging address entries from
the address window to the desktop.
Calls can be placed to those locations
simply by clicking on the icons.
Graphical User Interface
Internet Phone’s graphical user interface
is excellent. The main window
includes several pieces of useful information
that are logically arranged. For
example, it shows the name of who is
calling and the status of each call (busy,
no answer, talking, calling). The pointand-click
file transfer window is very
user-friendly, allowing users to select
and exchange files easily and quickly
during a call.
Another notable feature is Internet
Phone’s “animated assistant.” This
endearing character sleeps when you
aren’t talking, gets up to dial the number
when you call someone, and talks
into the phone receiver when you talk
into your microphone (Figure 9). Of
course, the animated assistant is just for
display. The Internet Phone doesn’t
actually dial a phone number. Rather, it
calls an e-mail address to access the
person on the other end. However, the
animated assistant, as it cheerfully
presses the buttons on its phone, does
succeed in evoking the phone “experience,”
with all its quaintness.
Other Features
Internet Phone Release 4 can be
upgraded to perform video conferencing,
and its Perceptual VOX voice activation
technology enables natural
hands-free operation. Audio quality is
significantly improved with VocalTec’s
proprietary VTSound algorithm. In
addition, Internet Phone’s open architecture
is designed to support multiple
data compression and Internet telephony
standards as they become available
for maximum compatibility.
Internet Phone Release 4 is also one
of the few Internet telephony software
Figure 9. Animated Assistant
sleeping (top).
Animated Assistant dialing
another user (bottom).
products that supports both the PC and
the Macintosh operating systems. We
did not test the Mac version, but,
according to VocalTec, the graphical
user interfaces are supposed to be nearly
identical between the two platforms,
allowing you to talk to any Internet
Phone user regardless of what platform
his or her computer operates on.
Internet Phone also allows you to
select the “use lowest bandwidth possible”
feature. This is useful if you
want to save bandwidth for browsing
the net, sending or receiving e-mails
through the net, etc.
OPERATIONAL TESTING
Transmission Delays
We tested Internet Phone externally
over the Internet using 28.8 KPS
modems to people around the world, as
well as co-workers who were approximately
30 feet away. (We were curious
about the effect of distance on transmission
delays and sound quality.) But
we didn’t stop there. We also tested
Internet Phone over our local Ethernet
10Base-T LAN using the TCP/IP protocol.
During our internal tests, while communicating
over the Internet to a fellow
employee, we used the company intercom
to measure any “delay.” In fact,
we did notice a slight echo effect, but
the delay, which turned out to be a little
less than half a second, was imperceptible
when we communicated without
the aid of the intercom.
We also ran Internet Phone over our
LAN and expected a much quicker
response (less delay). However, it
seemed that communicating at 28.8
KPS was just as fast as our 10Base-T
network! That could be due to several
factors. First, our company’s network
traffic could have been high, or it
could just be a matter of the “processing
power” of our computers. Perhaps
the translation of the TCP/IP packets
from digital format to a format that the
sound card can play requires several
CPU cycles, thus accounting for a
delay.
We tend to think it’s a matter of how
quickly the Internet Phone can translate
the TCP/IP packets, since our network
is roughly 30 times faster than our 28.8
KPS modems. (Or at least we hope so.
Hmmm. Maybe that’s why it took 30
minutes to copy that 500-byte file over
the network!)
Duplex And Half-Duplex
Performance
Each of the two machines we used to
conduct the tests ran with a CPU of at
least 90 MHz, used Windows 95, and
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