If your PC has a sound card, a speaker, and a microphone, you might be surprised to learn you can use it to make telephone calls. Once you have set up your PC as an internet phone, you can speak to anyone with a PC, anywhere, for free. You can also make calls to ordinary telephones at very cheap rates.
Dialpad offers the most popular internet phone service, with more than 13 million users. The reason for its popularity is simple: users based in the US can call any normal telephone line in the US from their PC (but not Apple Mac), for free.
Unfortunately, Dialpad stopped offering free PC-to-telephone calls from the UK last month - calls to the US now cost 2.9¢ per minute - but you can still use your internet phone to place a PC-to-PC call anywhere in the world without paying a cent.
To set up an internet phone
1 Go to www.dialpad.com
2 Click Join Now.
3 Fill in your details, then read and agree to the End User licence agreement. Click Continue.
4 Fill in the user survey, then click Done. (Say No to the suggested installation of Onflow software, as this is spyware and nothing to do with the Dialpad service.)
5 If you want any of Dialpad's special offers, check them; otherwise click No Thanks to move on.
6 You will find yourself on the My Dialpad page. Wait a while. When a window pops up asking if you want to download Dialpad, click Yes. If nothing happens, you may need to reduce the security settings on your browser: click the Dialpad Clinic icon on the My Dialpad page for help with this.
7 When a window looking like a telephone pops up, you are ready to dial! Except you might now be in the position of all first-adopters: you have your new internet phone, but no one to call. It is time to use your old telephone one last time, to tell some friends.
Once you know the user-name of someone with Dialpad set up on their PC, you can place a call.
Placing a call
1 Type their user-name into the number box in the Dialpad window.
2. Click Dial to connect. You get a two-second advert, tailored to your profile, then their phone rings. When your friend accepts, your call is connected, and you can talk for as long as you like.
The technology is called VoIP - Voice over Internet Protocol - and operates by transmitting a split-channel signal (one strand carrying the voice and the other carrying information about the call) using the same standards that control the flow of information over the internet. All you really need to know is that even with a low bandwidth connection (I used a 33k modem) it does work.
If you are using a laptop or an older PC, Dialpad may warn that you have a "half-duplex" sound card. This means your PC cannot simultaneously record and play sound, so you will have to take turns talking and listening, as with a CB radio.
Click on the small microphone icon within the Dialpad window whenever you want to talk. On most PCs, though, you can chat freely, just like using a normal telephone. You can use other windows while talking, but to receive calls you will need to leave the Dialpad window open while you surf. To hang up, click End.
If you really get along with using your PC as an internet phone, you can buy plug-in headsets or phone receivers from online vendors (such as www.dialpad.com/store).
What about calling people on their normal telephones? You can use your credit card to sign up for Dialpad World. This gives you cheap calls to telephones anywhere, including the US, in blocks of $10.
You can still use Dialpad to call US toll-free (1-800) numbers, which would be charged at international rates from your existing telephone. Just type the number into the dial box instead of the user-name.
Make sure you work out how to talk, though, before you put a call through. I didn't, and the lady on the New Yorker subscriptions desk might never answer the phone again.
