Comment Articles

Desktop phones in every PC

Guy Kewney AnchorDesk

Published: 12 Oct 2001 16:48 BST

As of next week, every new PC is a phone. It is, however, a much cheaper phone to use than the phones you have attached to the phone network. It has just one problem: nobody can call you.

And yes, it is important.

The change comes because Microsoft has included Internet phone services in both Windows XP, and in Windows Messenger.

It isn't as big a deal as it was when Microsoft first put MSN and a choice of other ISPs on the Windows desktop. That opened up the whole Internet to the ordinary PC owner; this just gives you cheaper phone calls.

But from the point of view of the big phone companies, it is like the footsteps of doom.

Here's how it works, and I'll then try to explain why I think it's a big change.

What Microsoft gives you, with the new Messenger and with XP, is the software to connect a microphone to the Internet, and send the sounds to any phone number in the world. It also gives you the software to receive the answer into a PC speaker or headset.

Technically, it isn't hard. The software digitises your voice, turns it into packets of data, and sends the packets to an Internet address; and incoming packets of data are turned back into voice and played through the speaker.

But you can't just do that. Most phones aren't on the Internet, and don't have a URL. So for you to reach the remote phone, you need to go through a gateway - a system which is connected to the Internet at one end, and to the PSTN (public switched telephone network) at the other.