Last month, in a further blaze of publicity, Qwest launched the world's first uncompressed Internet telephony service.
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Ms Prestage had been talking to Mr McGuigan on an internet telephony service just an hour before he was killed.
They want to add wireless telephony to their service bundles, better to compete with America's regional fixed-line incumbents, the Baby Bells.
In 1910 the federal regulator responsible for rail took on the new service of telephony.
Microsoft says it will use the company's software, people and intellectual property to accelerate the delivery of its unified communications vision, a vision bringing together various technologies including e-mail, instant messaging, short message service, telephony, and Web conferencing.
But Internet service providers who want to bundle telephony to their customers using the public Internet will have to invest heavily in bandwidth if quality is to be acceptable.
As consumers move aggressively toward dependence on cell phones, in some cases disconnecting landline service entirely, the irony is that telephony today often has long distance bundled right into a nationwide package for pennies a minute or no additional charge at all.
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While Google is best known for its Web search service, it has been pushing aggressively into telephony.
Sometimes described as a 2.5G technology because it acts as a bridge between mobile telephony and the full-fledged mobile Internet, the service has spawned a whole new style of phone usage, particularly among Japan's youth (see accompanying story).
You are correct that wireless penetration rates in the United States are higher than in France or Germany but overlook the point that virtually all mobile telephony in Europe is digital, but in America just over half of mobile-phone users have digital service.
And while many mobile services don't come with international calling, using the Skype service you can make international calls without paying hefty long distance fees, although there will be Internet telephony charges.
Even if Skype doesn't take over the telephony world, it has taken the genie out of the bottle, and will drive consumers to expect cheaper phone service.
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