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Reach out and 'Net someone
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July 16, 1996: 1:23 p.m. ET
Company says it can give consumers discount phone service over a PC
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - First there was electronic mail, allowing consumers to relay messages across the world without paying expensive postal rates. Now, a company called IDT Corp. says it will begin offering discount telephone service over the Internet.
The announcement came Tuesday when the company unveiled Net2Phone, the first service that lets people use a personal computer to make a telephone call over the Internet to any telephone. Up to now, all Internet phone software has required that another PC be at the other end of the call and that it be running when the call is made.
The service, which requires a multimedia computer, is aimed at international calls.
"Anybody can make a telephone call to the United States from wherever they are for 10 cents a minute as opposed to $2 to $4 a minute that it costs internationally," IDT's Howard Jonas told CNNfn. "If they want to call other countries, like to Europe, it will be around 15 cents a minute."
Analysts say the new software could find a niche in the Internet marketplace.
"IDT has a window of opportunity to get this out to market," said John Money, analyst at Kauffman Bros. "But there will certainly be competing products and you can also look for companies like Intel, Netscape, Microsoft, IBM to also enter this market.." 
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