A pioneer of voice-by-Internet telephony will expand its portfolio of cut-price telephone and fax call destinations to Hong Kong and Japan over the weekend. OzEmail, Australia's first hi-tech company to list on Nasdaq, already allows select telephone subscribers in Australia to place calls that bypass conventional international direct dialling (IDD) gateways and are instead routed through Internet connections. A computer server connected to the Internet will select an appropriate server near the intended destination to convert the call from a digital signal through the Internet to an analogue signal carried by a conventional fixed telephone network. Subscribers do not need to own a computer or a modem to use the service. OzEmail Phone complements a similar IDD cut-rate fax service launched last year that allows subscribers to enjoy cheaper fax traffic, initially to telephone numbers in New Zealand, the United States and Britain. It is also offering reduced rates to subscribers in Australia. OzEmail spokesman Michael Ward said Tokyo and Hong Kong would be included on the list of available calling destinations from Sunday. However, he would give no further details on progress of negotiations for access to the service outside Australia. Hongkong Telecom, which operates an Internet service through its Interactive Media Services (IMS) division, is one of at least two companies that have held discussions with OzEmail about setting up a Hong Kong dial-up and upload point. Mr Ward would not say which Internet service provider or telecoms carrier provided the link to Hong Kong's public switched network. OzEmail Phone callers from Australia to Hong Kong will be charged at HK$2.13 per minute for a call to Hong Kong. Hongkong Telephone International lists its outbound IDD rates to Australia at $7.20 per minute. OzEmail said it hoped to provide network access from outside Australia once partners were signed up and regulatory issues had been settled. OzEmail is Australia's largest Internet service provider. USA Global Link, a United States company that specialises in discount call-back services, will preview a similar service in Hong Kong next week that mixes calling card and Internet telephony services to achieve lower rates.
