The Internet Telephone Toolkit

Rating:
Summary: Not worth buying
Review: I'm sorry to say I bought this book and I found it to be poorly written and outdated.For someone who isn't into the technical side this is NOT the book to buy. I returned my copy. Also I couldn't get the CD-ROM to work, and all the programs were extremely out of date. I've read that the author is an industry leader, but I didn't find the information to be worth $29.95 Sorry.

Rating:
Summary: The presently definitive book on Internet telophony
Review: Internet telephony has been around since 1992, although it was not until 1995 that it become publicly prominent with the release of Internet Phone. Voice-over-net (VON), as Internet telephony is more popularly known, is now a focus of interest for net users at large. The prospect of being able to make cheap international and long distance phone calls is, no doubt, an attraction; however, I suspect that fascination with the technology is a big factor in the popularity of VON.

There are now many products, but incompatibility is a problem. Even though standardisation is on the way, at present parties wishing to talk to each other by way of Internet telephony have to use the same software.

One reason is that different compression systems are used. Digitised voice data lends itself to high compression ratios; audio codecs vary from 5:1 for the European GSM standard to 53:1 in TeleVox. The advantage of high compression ratios is that less bandwidth is required for VON applications. TeleVox needs 2.4K as against Internet Phone's 7.7K.

It is that kind of technical information that Jeff Pulver has brought together in his book, The Internet Telephone Toolkit. It is wall-to-wall facts about the technology and most of the available products. No hype, no padding, a minimum of graphics, and a CD - Mac and Windows partitions - that contains a range of VON software and CU-SeeMe.

Each of the available packages has its own features, strengths, and limitations. For example, WebPhone has offline voice mail; CoolTalk has a handy White Board; and IPhone works well with CU-SeeMe and enables a voice message to be e-mailed. Jeff Pulver describes Internet Phone, WebTalk, TeleVox, FreeTel, CoolTalk, WebPhone, NetMeeting, PowWow, VDOPhone, PGPhone, and Speak-Freely in sufficient detail (some in more detail than others) for prospective users to assess what is best for their respective purposes. Want on-hold MIDI music? Need secure communication? The depth of information is quite remarkable.

The author discusses hardware requirements, installation, VON servers, and how to get connected; the inclusion of FAQs covers most of the things users want to know, especially the causes (and remedies) of common problems, even to difficulties posed by firewalls, use with TIA, choosing between half and full duplex,

An appendix lists vendors and other resources with Web addresses; another appendix contains FAQs on Free World Dial-Up (FWD), an experiment designed to explore the possibility of Internet users being able to make telephone calls to any telephone service.

FWD is up and working, thanks to the efforts of Jeff Pulver, Izak Jenie (in Jakarta), Brandon Lucas (Tokyo), and Steven Mercurio (New Jersey). The book describes how FWD works and how - within the limits of existing servers - a connection can be made to telephone services that are not part of the Internet. Details are included for anyone interested in being part of the FWD experiment.

I am highly impressed by the book because it covers the full range of Internet telephony topics, as well as other audio and video issues, in plain, easy-to-read language. It is an excellent example of technical communication, containing all the necessary information anyone needs to get VON up and running. At the same time it is a fascinating read. Jeff Pulver and the publishers (who have done a good job of design) are to be congratulated. Even if you have no more than a casual interest in the technology, this book is worth reading.

There will, no doubt, be many VON books to follow, but presently it is the definitive text.

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed are my own. I have no interest, financial or otherwise, in the success or failure of this book, and - apart from a review copy - I have received no compensation from anyone who has.

Rating:
Summary: Incorrect Facts
Review: Unfortunately, not all of the facts are completely correct in this book. In the chapter that talks about CyberPhone, it mentions only one person, Greg Foglesong as being the creator of that product. I am quite disappointed in the research that went into this book since I, Matthew Krokosz, am actually the original founder and creator of CyberPhone. The idea was originally mine and development had begun even before the first version of IPhone had been made public. I actually brought Greg Foglesong into the project after several months of working it alone. I just hope all of the information in this book had more fact gathering than went into the CyberPhone chapter.