UK-based internet telephony integration firm NETcall Technologies, has announced the creation of a what it claims is the first global communication service to link the internet and the public telephone service. ‘SomeOne’ service, which will be live for UK customers in June, enables internet browsers to be immediately and automatically connected by telephone to a business or individual subscriber by clicking on NETcall’s HyperPhone Link, which can be placed on the web or attached to electronic mail. For example, if a customer wishes to book a hotel room he or she clicks on the HyperPhone Link the hotel has put on the web page of the city guide and gives out his telephone number. The hotel will then ring back to take the reservation. David Robson, marketing director at NETcall technology, said: This is not voice over the internet. The conversations are carried over the public telephone system but are initiated via the internet using NETcall’s CITI technology and HyperPhone Links. The ‘SomeOne’ service, NETcall said, costs a business less than a free-phone service or an 0800 number. The company has struck a deal with Global One, a consortium of telecommunications suppliers which includes Sprint Corp of the US, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom, to enable it to use the latter’s worldwide telecommunications infrastructure. NETcall Technologies is a subsidiary company of NETcall plc which is listed on London’s Alternative Investment Market.
