There is a small lag time between what one person says and the other hears. There are no common standards yet. So far, it sounds like a big headache. Eric Benhamou, chairman and CEO of 3Com Corp., estimates his company can save a whopping 30 percent with a fully deployed Internet telephony architecture. Industry forecasters claim if Internet telephony captures just 25 percent of customers who are choosing new carriers each year, all profit will be squeezed out of U.S. carriers' business models.
Internet telephony is one technology to watch.
So boot up your favorite search engines. Learn all you can about Internet telephony. You are going to need a better answer to that question than the one the San Francisco coffee shop owner offered to the woman ordering the tea.