Real-time Internet phone link

USA Global Link, a fast-growing U.S.-pioneer in the use of technology to cut the cost of international telephone calls stated recently it has developed the first telephone-to-telephone internet service, bypassing the need for a computer link. Customers would not need personal computers to use this system. It claims to be able to provide its customers with calls at a fraction of the usual cost -- essentially a call to anywhere in the world for the cost of a local call. It is investing US$500 million to achieve this goal.

It plans to launch this service to its customers in the U.S., Germany, Japan, Western Europe and other countries within the next six months.

Global Link says the system will be capable of transmitting voice, fax, video and data in two directions simultaneously, without the delays or problems of quality which have characterized Internet telephony to date.

Global Link has developed the technology -- mainly software -- to transmit voice traffic not in chunks or "packages" as at present for data on the Internet, but without delay or distortion through a multiplex telephone hard wire system. It can also provide the same of higher level of service through a radio frequency dish-to-dish system linked to a LAN or cable network.

Using the Internet, the world's largest and most comprehensive network, will enable customers to side-step the Accounting Rate System.

The price of international calls is held artificially high -- typically from five times to 100 times a local call -- by the Accounting Rate System. International operators agree how much to pay each other for delivering the others' calls through this cartel.

Global Link was a pioneer of "Call Back" telephony, a method of cutting the cost of calls from countries where international tariffs are high by reversing the direction of the call and taking advantage of the "international market" for the cheapest reliable link-up system.

As many national telecommunications companies operating domestically as virtual monopolies have feared for a while, the pace of change is forcing them to confront the new emerging technologies -- not by regulation-setting, such as banning "Call Back" operators as Indonesia and Singapore has recently tried to do -- but by pricing competitively (dramatically reducing tariffs on international and domestic calls) in their home market place if they are to retain their dominance in just a few years' time.

SEAMUS MCELROY

Tangerang, West Java