But as the technology improves, that delay figures to disappear. What users give up in convenience, they'll save in cash. Charges are deducted from the calling card's face value. The rates are so low because the Federal Communications Commission exempted Internet connections from the local access charges that long-distance companies must pay to connect calls. Perhaps the first major market for this kind of calling will be among people who make a lot of overseas calls.
Many countries impose heavy tariffs on international calls as a way of subsidizing domestic calling.
Using the Internet would let callers bypass those charges and, as a result, slash their calling rates. Sending an international fax over the Internet would dramatically cut costs, with no worries about voice quality. However, these early markets only hint at the potential of using the Internet to route telephone traffic. In the longer term, analysts foresee a new range of services that will make today's public telephone network look antiquated. That is, their software can convert voice signals, which travel as analog waveforms, into the data packets that move over the Internet.