November 3rd, 1999

[8:00 AM] Computer To Telephone Free Long Distance - Not For Mac...Yet One Observer has written to inform us of an amazing technology that allows phone calls to be made over the internet. If this sounds familiar, read on. This is not like anything you have seen before. According to Jed, an alert Observer: Dialpad.com is a company delivers internetphone but not like any other. Only one person needs a computer. The program then calls the other person over standard phone lines. Oh and the service is free for a call anywhere in the US. this means that you can call anybody anywhere for free if you have a computer. the quality is very good (doesn't sound digital at all) and it's fast as well. The only problem with the service is they only have a windows version at the moment. While they say that they are working on a mac version, I'm sure a large number of e-mails might give them a reason to move the porting higher on the priority list. If you feel it is appropriate to do so, you might consider a story on the service and link to allow mac users the chance to inform the company of their interest. Thanks, Jed. We agree. You can find more information at the Dialpad.com web site. The Mac Observer Spin: After exploring the Dialpad web site, we too think that this service is potentially groundbreaking. Long distance companies will not be fond of it, but for the consumer it could be a breakthrough technology. The Mac OS is famous for their originality, and technological leadership. Contact Dialpad.com and voice your desire for a Macintosh version of this application. Of course, the interesting thing is what happens if this is super successful. Though consumerism makes most of us think otherwise, someone does have to pay for things such as "free long distance" at some point. Infrastructure has to be maintained, bandwidth *has* to be paid for, etc. Still, services like this will put a lot of pressure on the more traditional long distance providers to cut their own costs still more. It will be a long time before people are willing to throw away their phones! :-) Dialpad.com