Fact is, you really only need two things:

1. A regular telephone

2. Broadband Internet access.

If you have these two things (and most people do), then you can take advantage of Internet phone service to save money on local and long-distance calling.

And another thing: sooner or later all telephone service will use some form of Internet telephony, which is another name for Internet phone service or VoIP (voice over Internet protocol). The only question is when are you going to jump in and get started?

These days, Internet phone service is rapidly becoming more and more reliable. It is gaining a wider audience all the time. Many cable companies are already taking advantage of this technology to capture a wider audience for their services. But make no mistake: like any newer technology there are some wrinkles that need to be ironed out.

So, to help you make an informed decision, let’s look at some of the pros and cons to Internet phone service.

PRO’S

Cost

Most Internet phone companies will charge you a monthly fee and in return you can get (and make) unlimited calls within the continental United States. You also have the ability to make international calls for a tiny amount of the cost that your making those calls for now.

Again, if you’re already paying for broadband Internet than you already have most of the system in place to make telephone calls from PC-to-PC anywhere in the world — pretty much for free. Of course there are other more convenient ways of making Internet phone calls. For example, you can make a phone call from your PC to any standard landline phone. It does cost a little more, but the savings are still substantial.

Mobility

Pretty much anywhere you go now you are within the easy access of a broadband Internet connection. So if you have a cell phone that is VoIP-compatible then you can logon to your account and make a phone call. If you’re a frequent traveler you probably already have the proper headset and cables for your phone.

In other words, Internet phone service of this sort is just as convenient as checking your e-mail while you’re on the road.

Portability

When you get an Internet phone service account, the phone that you use is going to be assigned a unique phone number. This number will remain good, whether you’re making phone calls in New York or Los Angeles or Miami or Chicago or St. Louis or even in London, England.

Familiarity

Internet phones have all the familiar features like call waiting, voicemail, caller ID, call forwarding, and three-way calling. All of this is available to you with pretty much any standard Internet phone package at no extra cost to you. And if you need to, you can even send pictures and documents while you’re on the phone.

CONS

Power outages

With conventional phone service from the phone company, your telephone receives power even in the event of an outage to the electrical grid. This is not the case with standard Internet phone service. Your computer (and any associated equipment like a WiFi router) needs to have power. If any of these are not working, your Internet phone service will not work.

Emergency 911 Calls

Another downside to Internet phone service is that emergency or 911 calls don’t work the same way. When you call 911 with conventional phone service, if you can’t talk the emergency personnel receiving your call can still pinpoint your location and send help. It doesn’t work that way with Internet phone service. Newer technologies may be able solve that problem but that’s not universally true just yet.

Voice Clarity

Another downside to Internet phone service is that the quality and reliability isn’t quite as good as compared to a traditional landline. This is because the same technology that makes the Internet possible is not optimized for voice traffic.

When you send an e-mail on the Internet, the message is broken up into small pieces and sent to its destination over different pathways. Then it is reassembled at the end. This is OK with email, but not with a voice call. When you make a phone call you don’t want there to be a delay, or an echo, or any bad quality on the call at all. While quality is better now, Internet phones aren’t quite perfect yet.

Conclusion

The future for Internet phone service is very bright. There are some disadvantages presently, but with time those are being solved. I look forward to the future and all the benefits that Internet phone service can provide.

Ara Rubyan is not a part of the VoIP industry, nor does he sell VoIP services, nor does he pretend to be a guru of any kind. Instead, he is like you: a consumer, a business owner, and someone who has been researching the industry so that he could make an informed decision about the best VoIP service for his needs. Now, he’s put all his research (so far) in one convenient location and he’s sharing it with you, no strings attached.

For more info on Internet phones, visit Ara Rubyan’s VoIP Solution.

This report is a ticking bomb that caused alarm to the Philippine Government, the business sectors and especially the business process outsourcing (BPO) companies, which serves as a foundation of call centers in the Philippines.

“High levels of corruption, ongoing efforts to reform the judicial system, weak but improving protection of intellectual property rights, the slow pace of energy sector reform and privatization, the need for further fiscal reforms to boost depressed spending levels for infrastructure and social services, and political uncertainties combined to dampen investor interest,” are the major considerations highlighted by the US Government on basing their statement.

I learned that various sectors put the pressure to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on how she will address the report. She kept on saying that English should use as primary medium of instruction in all schools nationwide. In fact, Mrs. Arroyo highlighted stressed that “knowledge is the greatest creator of wealth”. With this development, the President allocated PhP150 billion, which is PhP29 billion increased last year in education budget. She stressed that that almost young Filipino professionals are employed in a call center in the Philippines and received enjoyable salary package from the different contact centers they are working for. She also reported that most schools in the country have accessed to the Internet because of the program designed by the Department of Education (DepEd).

The report alarmed the business councils both foreign and domestic because it might cause panic to our call center industry, which one of the vibrant industries in the country today. The business council noted that the Philippines is the home of the world largest call center companies aside from India, China, Singapore and among others.

The US State Department noted that “the comparative advantages the Philippines once enjoyed vis-à-vis its neighbors in attracting foreign investment need to be restored in order to attract more investment and support higher growth.”

Meanwhile, Beau Rudd, chief executive officer of Unique Interaction encourage his call center agents to always use English as the first language. Mr. Rudd said that there are so many big call centers in the Philippines and they have a strict policy about English only when you come into the office.

“I have been trying to figure it out for a long time and the only reason I thought it was for is because the customer might hear Tagalog in the background. The reason these company have put this in place is because of this, when you are always taking in English you will always think in English,” he stressed.

It sounds funny but all Filipinos may speak good English but they are converting it in the mind from Tagalog and the problem with them is Tagalog is all backwards, he added.

In a call center in the Philippines, it employed about 200,000 call center representatives working in different companies. This is according to one of the executives in a call center in the Philippines reported during the Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP) roadmap conference held last July 11 and 12 this year. Call center managers relayed that this business remained to be a sunshine industry and continue to grow faster. The CCAP further revealed that the industry needs at least 500,000 contact center agent professionals by 2010, a target the organization has come up with after extrapolating its current demand but considering the 19-percent yearly attrition. CCAP is now composed of 34 contact center companies based in the Philippines.

This is no joke. Losing employees for call centers will only reflect that we, Filipinos failed to implement the English program policy. Or shall I say, the government is incompetent enough to improve the country’s learning English skills. The good focal point, however, that we Filipinos are dedicated to learn this language in order for us to have edge especially when applying for jobs. Even call center companies expressed their statement that deterioration of English sounds “painful”. These call center leaders blamed the soap operas dubbed in Pilipino, and too much focusing on cell phone text messaging. The education sector blamed the influence of pop culture and the domestic media, where the dominant language is Taglish, a combination of Tagalog and English.

The US government further outlined that the country’s fiscal conditions, helped recently by new revenue legislation, seem nonetheless to be improving and the general economic outlook is cautiously optimistic for 2007. The figures indicates that the Philippines’ GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth accelerated from 5% in 2005 to 5.4 percent as of September 2006, spurred by a recovery in post-drought agricultural harvests, more robust export growth, the continued strength of remittances from Filipinos overseas, and a vibrant call center business.

Roberto L. Bacasong
Customer Service Representative
Unique Interaction Asia
Ortigas, Philippines
http://www.uniqueinteraction.com
http://www.voipmanila.com

The KPO sector has almost triple its size to more than $2 billion in just two years.

The CEO of Pipal research, a KPO company, Manoj Jain points that the billing rates for the KPO industry are as much as three times of those in the BPO industry. This is attracting many new players in the industry.

According to the experts, the capital requirements for the KPO industry can be anywhere between 40% & 50%. This is lower than the amount required for setting up a BPO unit.

Last month, the formal bid of more than €40 billion from Sebastian was rejected & criticized by Vivendi. This resulted into raised pressure on the group to justify its conglomerate structure going forward.

Norwegian entrepreneur, Alexander Vik, who runs Sebastian Holding, an offshore investment company, left the door open on Wednesday by saying it continued to analyze the situation.

Sebastian has confirmed that it owns 4% of Vivendi while Vivendi claims the stake is only about 1.2%.

Canaan partners have roped in Alok Mittal from Barings private equity partners India. Alok Mittal is an IIT Delhi graduate who co-founded the online recruitment portal JobsAhead.com.

He said that the group would focus on technology & health care with a typical investment of $3-4 million. He also disclosed that the organization had a discussion with 50 companies & thereafter, short-listed about 10 companies till now.

Canaan is looking forward to an association with firms that have been engaged in development of new technologies for Internet & mobile telephony in conjunction with emerging market technologies.

The CEO of Genpact, Pramod Bhasin said that the demographics & economics of these countries are such that it is not possible to have big centers.

Bhasin also believes that Indians may be good at speaking English but they are not good at other foreign languages such as French, Spanish & German. He also added that natural fluency might be a difficult goal to achieve even through proper training.

Hence, this has made it necessary to have a presence in Europe.

Working in IBM for most employees is seen as an opportunity to rise above the rest of the crowd.

IBM’s game plan for India would be a serious move for its young and enthusiastic employees. IBM is now looking forward to be known as a “globally integrated enterprise”.

The CEO of the largest computer services providing company said that the group had invested $5 billion in R & D & had five Nobel Prize winners.

He also added that the testimony of the growth of IBM in India has also been very evident with it emerging as the highest MNC IT exporter in the domestic market.

The “Innovation & leadership forum” was successful webcasted across IBM’s 170 global locations on Tuesday.

Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, presented his IT credentials at the grand show by touting Bangalore advantages.

The EDS open offer was concomitant on the fact that the company receives 52% stake in the Indian entity.

The offer was for 83 million shares, which would have costed the Plano-based, IT giant around $380 million. The offer price was pegged at Rs.204.50 per share in Indian rupees.

The CEO & Chairman of IBM, Sam J Palmisano will run the showcase in the presence of president Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Bharti group chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal & Karnataka Chief minister H D Kumaraswamy.

The event will be held at the palace grounds and termed as IBM Employee Town Hall with 8/10,000 employees, investors, analysts & guest & will be linked through a satellite to 6, 500 other Indian employees from various sites across the country.

IBM would be holding an analyst meet for the first time in Bangalore. IBM’s business in India has prospered by 61% in the first quarter of 2006 & this has made it the fastest growing geography for the company globally.

Genpact has topped the list followed by WNS & Wipro BPO in the second & third positions respectively. The rank has been awarded on the basis of the revenues generated for 2005-06.

Genpact became an independent BPO soon after GE sold 60% of its stake to General Atalantic Partners & OaktHill Capital Partners in 2004.