Once connected, the agent would be able to see all the customer’s details and the Web page. Between them, they could solve the problem rapidly.

Unfortunately, the dream relied on people abandoning the telephone and using their computers to talk to each other, using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). It converts the waveforms of sound into packets of digital bits and sends them down the line to the Internet, where they are shunted round the network.

Once the packets get to the computer at the other end, they are reassembled and converted back into soundwaves.

The advantage is that you only pay for the local call to your Internet service provider. If you are on a permanent Internet connection, calls effectively are free. The downside is poor call quality and gaps in the connection. The process also forces consumers to set up the system on their PCs, which has deterred home users.

As with so many Internet big ideas, VoIP has failed to ignite the world but it is emerging as a dramatic new force within call centres, or Automatic Call Distributors (ACDs).

Today’s call centres have two sets of wiring — voice and data — and complex software links the two so that calls can be put through to an operator’s phone at the same time as the caller’s file is sent through a computer.

VoIP allows voice and data to be sent over the same network — everything is data — and, as a result, bandwidth and call quality problems are eliminated. Also, the software controlling the call centre can be made simpler.

Savings for a medium-size centre can be up to £350,000 a year, simply by not having to run a voice line to every agent.

Nevertheless, the market is extremely immature, according to analysts Datamonitor. There are only 50 “pure” VoIP call centres in Europe, and the market was worth a tiny $4.4 million (£3 million) in 2000. However, Datamonitor believes the outlook is bright and predicts that, by 2005, there will be more than 3,000 VoIP call centres, and revenues will have risen to $308 million (£209 million).

Elsa Lion, author of Datamonitor’s recent report on VoIP call centres, says the sector is going through a transitional phase using hybrid call centres with IP-enabled phones, allowing legacy equipment to be incorporated. “Hybrids are quite limited and do not allow unified messaging so they will not survive long,” says Ms Lion. “But pure IP requires a lot of investment — you have to rip out everything you have already.” She believes trends in the general telecommunications world will spur the move to VoIP.

Slashing costs is not the only advantage of VoIP in call centres, says David Mackenzie, the principal consultant at CT Consulting, the call centre specialists.

Unified messaging, combining voice messages, e-mail, faxes and even text messages, can boost productivity enormously. This has instant appeal for smaller companies because it makes agents more flexible.

An unexpected benefit of using Internet Protocol rather than analogue voice is that it makes outsourcing easier. Centrex Services partition off part of a public telephone exchange and use it as if it was an office exchange.

“IP-based call centres lend themselves to Centrex because the ISP can just run an Internet connection from the exchange to the call centre, rather than a voice line for each agent. So it works well with outsourcing,” says Mr Mackenzie.

Mackenzie sees VoIP cleaning up in the call centre market. “It is versatile, you can look at video and swap documents, and it is much more economical with bandwidth,” he says. “The big challenge will be to see if companies creating VoIP ACD systems will have enough understanding of how call centres work.”

Roger Sinden, a director of business development at CosmoCom, believes the next step is the virtual call centre, which will use VoIP to connect callers to operators anywhere in the world at low Internet call rates.

“A virtual call centre can transfer work easily so, when the UK closes, the US can take over support to provide a 24-hour service,” says Mr Sinden.

This facility will tempt the large operators to adopt VoIP, after which consumers will begin to see compelling reasons to adopt the technology, too.

“The Innovations website has a ‘contact us’ button enabling you to have a dialogue with an agent,” says Mr Sinden. “Video will allow the customer to see the agent and look at the product.”

The current problems with VoIP are being solved rapidy as more bandwidth is released and call quality improves as a result. High speed data services such as ADSL will also help.