Group 3 Technology NETeasyPhone

Making free telephone calls over the internet has always been an attractive proposition. However, in the past the results often sounded like you were having a walkie-talkie conversation with a Dalek rather than making a call to family in a foreign country. This package promised to be different.

Setting up the hardware and software was very easy. You simply install the NETeasyPhone software, plug the hardware USB phone into your computer and then create a user name. Other NETeasyPhone users can then use this user name to phone you.

We tried making a call from an NTL broadband connection to a BT ADSL line and the results were surprisingly good. The call quality was crisp and clear and there was no delay.

However, there are some other problems. There's no directory of users, so if you don't know someone's user name you can't perform a search to find it. Also, unlike services such as net2phone you can't use the NETeasyPhone software to call a normal phone from your computer.

Seeing as you can buy a USB phone for around £20 and download free software such as the Buy It award-winning Skype, this package does seem a tad overpriced.

Contact: Group 3 Technology 0870 333 9977
www.neteasyphone.net