Phone Free

By JOSHUA QUITTNER

The advent of certain technologies makes me feel that I am out of touch with humanity. The button fly, for instance, especially on men's pants. Don't we already suffer enough? Congress ought to pass legislation requiring J. Crew to print bold-faced warnings on all button-fly-trouser-related copy. That way there would be no mistakes.

But the Aplio Internet phone--now there's a technology that I can instantly understand and even endorse. Who among us doesn't want to save money on long-distance phone bills? Aplio, a device that uses the Net to circumvent the phone company, promises to cut "up to 95% off your long-distance bill," according to its marketing literature. I'd be willing to settle for half off.

That's why Internet telephony is a big thing that's only getting bigger. Vint Cerf, one of the Internet's founding fathers, estimates that as much as half of all long-distance traffic will go over the Net by the year 2010--and he should know, since he now works for MCI. By 1999, an estimated 16 million people will have purchased (from VocalTec and others), or downloaded for free, software that enables them to talk to fellow computer owners through their PCs, although if you go this route, you will probably also need a sound card and microphone. Others prefer to make computer-to-telephone calls using Web services like IDT's Net2Phone that patch them through to any phone in the world for about 10[cents] a minute. I've been holding out for a gadget that will let me make long-distance Internet calls without using my PC at all. That's where the Aplio (pronounced ah-plee-oh) fits in.

The $199 box, which looks like a telephone-answering machine, has been out for a year but was only recently spiffed up and just last week became available in retail stores like J & R Music World. I talked to Oliver Zitoun, Aplio's co-founder, who is French and very ambitious. "The whole plan is to have Aplio everywhere," he says. "Built into phones, set-top cable boxes and anywhere you have Internet access."

Sounds good. But as soon as I try to call my wife with mine, I run into Aplio's biggest drawback: you can only use it to call another Aplio owner. No Aplio-to-telephone or even Aplio-to-PC calls, I'm afraid. You also need a real Internet service provider; America Online won't work.

Once you get over that hurdle, setup is pretty straightforward. You plug a standard phone line into one hole in the back of the box and a standard telephone receiver into the other. You use the telephone to dial your Internet provider and to punch in your log-in and password. Then the Aplio--with its built-in modem--takes over, connecting you to the party you are trying to speak to. It connects you, that is, if the party has an Aplio synched to yours, which probably requires enough prearrangement by telephone to eat up most of that 95% saving.

When I finally reach my wife, I can speak to her through the telephone handset in the normal way. The connection is O.K., except that every once in a while the Net swallows random syllables and even whole words. I guess if you had to make frequent calls to France, say, you could learn to live with it. "Hello, Watson," I say to my wife. "_es," she says, I think. "We need to return those pants," I say. There's a pause. "Not another _air of __ton-_ly __ousers!" she says, I think.

More about Aplio at time.com/personal And watch Anita Hamilton Wednesdays on CNNfn's Digital Jam, 7:30 p.m. E.T.