Dialing for pennies.

Colombian Amparo Correa uses her Internet connection to call outside her country on a daily basis--cheap. She mainly calls the United States and Europe at one-tenth what she used to pay for regular phone calls. "The savings are colossal," says Correa. "I am happy to be able to save something. Rates in Colombia are too high." Lots of Latin Americans seem to share Correa's enthusiasm. Global sales of handsets for broadband calling totaled US$1.70 billion in 2004, a 36% increase from the year before. Over the coming four years, the number of worldwide corporate broadband lines will increase to over 260 million--nearly 14 times what it is now. Revenues will more than quintuple to $5.50 billion by 2008, according to Synergy Research Group. The phenomenon is definitely growing, says Mitchell Slepian, spokesperson for Vonage, a U.S. broadband phone company. "We have 400,000 customers and we are adding 30,000 more lines per month," he says. Twenty percent of Vonage's customers are small businesses. Jose Aguilera works connecting new users at two hotel business centers and at a cyber cafe in Nicaragua. During the past four years, he has seen the technology improve--including services like voicemail and call waiting. "Overall, they are pretty good. In the beginning, the connection was very expensive; it's now a lot cheaper," says Aguilera. "Lots of people use it. There must be 15 or 18 cyber-net cafes in the area." He estimates that more than a hundred people use broadband phones on a daily basis at each of his work locations.