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Netphone Burst

Internet telephony is proving a big hit around the world. The lowdown in India.

Net Phone: The next stop?

If Internet Telephony conjures up images of headgear and a desktop for you, refresh your image reservoir.

Things have changed. Internet telephony has established an almost ghostly presence. You can't tell anymore whether that regular phone your colleague is on is zipping voice-packets down the old crackle-and-hiss lines or the Internet. It looks and feels the same.

Except when the bill arrives, of course, and that's the whole point. An international call can now be made from India at one-fifth the regular call tariffs.

It's barely been a year since the market was kicked off in India. And the list of corporate converts is pretty impressive already, including the likes of Larsen & Toubro, Godrej and Boyce, LG Electronics, Ernst & Young and Hughes Software Systems. Throw in free intra-office calls anywhere to anywhere within the country, and you know why companies are so excited by it all.

"In the US," says Jasjit Sawhney, CEO, Net4India, a net telephony solution provider. "companies are yanking off their fixed phones and replacing them with Net telephony devices. The trend will also pick up in India."

That may be one explanation for the surrender of over 1.5 million fixed line connections last year of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), the incumbent service provider. At the end, it's all about choice. And as with most things to do with choice, most of these calls seem to be headed to the United States of America. Telecom cornershops are watching demand grow. So, as a retail user, the next time you want to make a call to the US at the internet rate of Rs 5 a minute (rather than the regular rate of Rs 24 a minute), walk into a phonewala booth, pick up the Net phone... and have your say.

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