Over There? Call for Less

By Wilson Rothman

In a borderless world, phone bills can seem irrational. If it costs nothing to e-mail colleagues overseas, why should talking to them be costly? Two very different new products offer potential remedies to international-calling issues. Vonage, the Internet phone service provider, is rolling its services into a little wi-fi handset. Designed by UTStarcom, it can hop onto any wi-fi network you have access to, including the networks for hire found at many airports and hotels.

Whenever you're connected to the Internet, you get all the phone services you get at home, even if you're not there. Friends and co-workers still just dial your domestic phone number, and when you call them, it's local. The catch is that once you're away from wi-fi, you can't really use the phone. Vonage has plans to introduce a phone with inexpensive Internet calling at home, but full cellular service when needed.

On the cell-phone front, Uphonia, a new prepaid mobile service, will let users call more than 100 countries for a fixed 20-c- a minute. You can get better rates to many countries with special calling cards, but that price includes the phone. The rate also applies to calls made to U.S. numbers; compared with other domestic prepay plans, 20-c- a minute is about average. One catch: Uphonia phones can call just about anywhere in the world, but you can't use them outside the U.S. --By Wilson Rothman