Word: pstn
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Currently, telecommunications companies around the world maintain two separate networks--the Internet for data, and the telephone network, sometimes called the "Public Switched Telephone Network" (PSTN), for voice calls...
...PSTN--used for phone calls today--makes a direct connection between a user and a caller...
...PSTN is really a throwback to the days of the oldest phone switchboards. When a long-distance call using the network is made, the switching network connects the caller and the recipient's telephones via a series of analog telephone lines...
Enter Internet telephony. The idea is simple: Internet phone companies digitize the voices of the two people speaking on the phone and send the voices as packets through a standard high-speed IP connection instead of the PSTN. Because packets don't have to be sent in order or in sync, many more callers can be accommodated through relatively cheap, high-speed fiber lines. No computer is required on either end--IP phone companies take advantage of local phone systems to be the front--and back--ends of their calls...
...only reason why Internet phone companies have a price advantage over their competitors. More important is the matter of access fees. Traditional long-distance providers have to pay access fees to local phone companies to reimburse them for the use of their customers' phones to "reach" the PSTN. For instance, a call from Boston to Orlando requires MCI to pay access fees to both Bell Atlantic and BellSouth--fees which are, in turn, passed on to consumers...