You Take The Call - call-waiting services for Internet users - Brief Article

Get all your phone calls--even when you're on the Net.

In the never-ending war on phone tag, a land mine familiar to dial-up modem users is missed calls while you're busy surfing the Net. It's not a problem shared by the lucky few who have DSL or cable modems--both of which let you talk and surf simultaneously--but if broadband hasn't come to your neighborhood yet, your only option has been to pay the phone company another $25 per month for a second phone line (which, ironically, pushes your phone bill up to about what you'd pay for DSL or cable). Internet call-waiting service is a cheaper option.

Call-waiting services redirect incoming calls via a toll-free number to be answered automatically at a call center. These services then report to your computer screen the number that just called. CallWave's Internet Answering Machine (www.callwave.com) is free, but demands that you watch a barrage of advertising. For less than $5 per month, you can get InfoInterActive's Internet Call Manager (www.internetcallmanager.com) or Pagoo's Call Catcher (www.pagoo.com). Pagoo and CallWave will even send voice-mail messages to your PC via voice-over-IP. You can then decide whether to log off and call them back or keep on clicking. All these require that you order "call forward on busy" service from your phone company--an additional $1 to $3 per month.

Then there's Nortel Networks's Internet Call Waiting service, which is now provided as an extra-cost option to customers of Ameritech, Microsoft's MSN, Bell Canada, and a number of Canadian ISPs and phone companies. Costing about $6 per month, Nortel's solution gives you the added option of logging off and taking the call immediately.

"According to our research, people want to immediately answer about 65 percent of incoming calls while they're on the Net," says Chris Fedorko, director of extreme voice business development at Nortel Networks in Brampton, Ontario.

Expect the demand for Internet call-waiting to rise: According to a recent study from IDC, there will be 22 million subscribers to such services by the end of 2003, generating $399 million in service revenues. "These are extremely compelling services for single-line, work-at-home households," says Dana Thorat, senior research analyst at IDC in Framingham, Massachusetts.

As broadband expands, and as technology such as Nortel's becomes integrated into the standard feature list of phone companies and ISPs, existing call-waiting services may find it more difficult to compete. More services will follow CallWave's lead in offering free or cut-rate services, Thorat predicts.

Eric Brown, a regular contributor to pcworld.com, is a freelance writer living in the Boston area.

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