As an online war game called Battlefield 2 recently unfolded, Frank Ribecca, in the role of a U.S. Marine, was virtually toting an M16 assault rifle in an unnamed Middle Eastern city.

Suddenly, one of his fellow Marines, controlled by a gamer with the screen name "Kamiken," whispered to him, "Enemy car spotted." Reacting to the other player's warning, Mr. Ribecca made his figure jump onto the roof of a nearby house and pump the enemy vehicle full of bullets.

Mr. Ribecca, a 27-year-old barbershop manager, had never met Kamiken or any of the other 62 players in the game. They were located around the world and communicated through headsets with microphones plugged into computers linked to the Internet.

Voice is back.

But this time it's on the Internet. Just when the rise of email and text-messaging began eroding traditional phoning, voice communication is staging an online comeback -- in a variety of unlikely ways.

Facilitated by broadband Internet connections, computer users are talking to each other as they play games, arrange dates and conduct business. All of these activities are available now because advancements in digital technology have made it possible to transfer voice in information packets, just like an email.

There are several ways in which voice over Internet protocol, familiarly called VOIP, is available. Some companies, like Vonage Holdings Corp., offer phone service using a normal phone hooked up to the Internet. These services, which are fee-based, are designed to take market share from the traditional phone companies. Vonage's service is cheaper than that of the phone companies because the company doesn't have to build its own copper network, and it is exempt from having to pay all kinds of phone fees.

"Voice is a far more efficient way of communicating than trading emails," says Drew Robertson, whose New York-based Atlantic Systems Inc. is developing a wireless headset and microphone for computer conversations. Games like the one Mr. Ribecca was playing, Electronic Arts Inc.'s Battlefield 2, can be so complex that having the ability to do some functions, like issuing commands, by voice can make a big difference, Mr. Ribecca says.

Google Inc. on Tuesday became the latest Internet business to jump into the voice market with its announcement that it would enable Google subscribers to make phone calls over personal computers. All that's needed is a headset. The company is joining a crowded field dominated by the likes of Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Time Warner Inc.'s America Online.

With these Internet companies "going down that route, it's very clear that Internet phoning will be very important," says Weiyee In, a managing director at New York Global Securities Inc. "It's inevitable that everything will migrate" to an Internet-based platform, he says, referring to television and phoning, among other applications.

Microsoft's Xbox Live, an online gaming service for the console that helped pioneer the online-gaming boom, enables users to chat while they figure out which games to play, leave voicemails for users who aren't yet online and talk to one another during the games. In Los Angeles, some users of Halo 2, a popular Xbox sci-fi war game, conduct business deals on the game's voice functions, a Microsoft spokeswoman says.

Xbox Live has more than two million members who pay the annual subscription fee of $69.99, the Microsoft spokeswoman says.

For many Internet uses, voice applications are a free add-on service that enhances existing applications like instant messaging. Certainly, voice messaging helped Andy Abramson, a 46-year-old information-technology consultant based in Delmar, Calif., who in November 2004 met a woman in a hotel lobby in San Francisco. Unfortunately, his new acquaintance, a 42-year-old physician named Helene Malabed, lived 500 miles away from Delmar in Sacramento.

But the two were able to keep in touch regularly and cheaply, by using a variety of Internet voice services, he said. One was from Skype Technologies SA, which enables calls directly through a computer, using built-in speakers or a headset. Users download free Skype software and then can call other Skype users anywhere in the world, free of charge. Calling a non-Skype user triggers a fee.

Mr. Abramson also set up a completely free "hot line," a committed Internet phone connection between their two homes. "What Internet phoning has done is make it possible to talk a lot without spending any money," says Mr. Abramson. The couple recently became engaged.

Voice on the Internet has also showed signs of improving customer-support services. In recent years, some company Web sites have included integrated browsing capabilities, which enable the support staff to remotely take control of the customer's browser and direct him to relevant information on the Web site. At the same time, the support staff can offer audio instructions through the site's voice application.

Fantasy sports leagues, where success is determined by the individual statistics of players each participant selects, are also changing how they do things with the advent of Internet phoning. Now, instead of meeting in person to conduct the season-opening draft, participants can meet virtually, conducting the draft on a Web site with a free Internet call.

"Ten years ago, the first Web sites were like company brochures," says Jeff Pulver, an Internet-phoning entrepreneur in Melville, N.Y. "No one ever expected to have the ability to engage a community virtually. But now a lot of services are becoming a part of the Internet experience, including video, email and voice."

Vonex LLC, a Brooklyn-based company working on a platform to make it easier for online gamers to use voice, is betting on demand for voice exploding. There are now 20 million online gamers in the world, with close to 20 percent of them using voice, according to A.J. Loiacono, founder of Vonex. That is up from less than 10 percent last year. "Voice is pure communication," says Mr. Loiacono.

First Published: August 25, 2005, 4:00 a.m.