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I CAN'T ALWAYS get through to my Mom--at least I couldn't while testing Actiontec's Internet Phone Wizard, a nifty new product that connects your telephone to the Internet to allow free U.S. long-distance calling. When it works, the system convincingly mimics a regular call, but it didn't succeed every time.
I found that when I called Mom, my 56-kbps winmodem slowed to 28 kbps. With the first calls, the telephone at Mom's house rang and I could hear her answer, but she couldn't hear me. After several tries, we finally made contact, but the sound was occasionally choppy. Later, I used a DSL connection in the PC World Test Center and got much better results.
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