Five years after Net telephony promised to revolutionize the way the world communicates, the same roadblocks to mass adoption remain. Voice quality is still sketchy, and using a PC to reach out and touch someone is unnatural for people who grew up with traditional phones.
Today, however, Internet phone companies like Net2Phone, Deltathree and Dialpad Communications are pinning their hopes on an unlikely player in the telecommunications market: Microsoft. Telecommunications executives and analysts say recent moves by the software giant into Internet telephony may be the last chance for the technology to reach the mainstream.
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