Computer call: When your PC becomes a phone
(Priyanka Joshi & Shivani Shinde / Mumbai November 23, 2009),

VoIP services come in real handy to make cheap overseas calls.

While domestic call rates have dipped to a measly 1 paisa/second in the country, telecom companies still maintain steep rates for international (ISD) calls. If Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are to be believed, internet telephony offers a way out, allowing users to make such calls for free from computers.

At present, a call can be made legally from a computer only to another computer within the country, and not to a phone. But domestic users are allowed to make international calls from their computers to a phone. Internet telephony, if unrestricted, would also allow consumers to make calls to a computer from their mobile handsets.

Users have already begun to see sense in internet telephony. Take, for instance, Mumbai-based Vikram Duseja, an executive with P&G who is on the move 15 days a month. The countries and cities he travels to are mostly remote and unknown territories.

“During my official visits, I neither have the time to go and look for local phone cards nor do I have a clue about the international call rates charged by my telecom operator. The next best thing for me is to use my Wi-Fi enabled laptop for calling home,” says Duseja.

“Wi-Fi is free at certain places abroad, like international airports and hotel lounges. It is, therefore, a better way for me to have lengthy conversations with my family back in Mumbai via a free Wi-Fi connection and any free internet telephony service provider,” he reasons simply. This way, Duseja saves on roaming charges on his internet data card for the laptop and also on his mobile phone connection. There are other users who have similarly taken to internet telephony. Jitendra Tandel, a 27-year-old media executive, began using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications purely to cut the long-distance phone bills he used to face to stay in touch with his brother in the UK.

“I speak to my brother once a month. By using internet telephony services, I end up saving close to 50 per cent on a call made either through a landline or through a mobile network,” Tandel says.