Posts Tagged ‘Phone Call’

Is an Online Conference Call a Good Thing?

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

The telephone conference call has been around for a long time, but now with the advent of the Internet and phone calls over the Internet what about the online conference call? There are services that promise to be able to give you cheap or even free conference call services online.  So, is an online conference call a good thing?  Here are some of the things you should consider if you are thinking about trying an online conference call.

  • Quality- The first thing you need to consider when thinking about an online conference call is the quality.  It used to be you would n0t even consider doing a phone call over the Internet let alone a conference call.  But the Internet network improved and then people started to get high speed access and the option started to make some sense to people.  VOIP (Voice Over IP) technology has come a long way but it is still not of the same quality as a regular telephone call.  There are traffic issues with the Internet and the connections to it that cause irregularities that you do not notice when surfing the Internet but will surely notice when you try to make a phone call over it.  And with an online conference call you don’t have just one call going on but you will have any number of participants on an online conference call and that uses even more bandwidth.
  • Reliability- Reliability of an online conference call is much the same as the quality in its issues.  Everyone has experienced hits on their Internet connection that cause loss of data and even outages altogether on their Internet connection.  It is bothersome if you are on your PC when this happens but if you are on an online conference call when this happens it can be disastrous.
  • Accessibility – Probably the biggest argument against an online conference call is the issue of accessibility.  When you do an online conference call all of the participants need to have access to a PC and an Internet connection.  This defeats the whole concept and convenience of a conference call.  With a regular conference call you can join the conference call from anywhere you have a telephone.  And with mobile phones that is virtually anywhere.  And even if everyone is sitting at their desk to attend your online conference call not everyone has the equipment on their PC to be able to participate because you also need a microphone or a headset.

    • I do believe that someday the network will be ubiquitous and we will be communicating through our PC or similar device but for now the best place for a conference call is on the plain old telephone network.

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    A Phone Conference Call is Still the Way to Go

    Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

    The phone conference call has been around for quite some time. And over the past 15 years that I have been in the industry there have been a lot of changes in technology but the phone conference call continues to thrive. Why is that? Certainly there must be a new phone app or PC program that would make a phone conference call disappear. I mean today you can have a video conference on your cell phone with another person. You can hook your PC up and use the Internet to call thousands of miles for nothing more than the price of your Internet connection. So a plain old phone conference call? Really? Let’s look at some of the competing technologies that have come about in the past 15 and some of the reasons they have not had the same success as the plain old phone conference call.

    • Video Conferencing – The phone conference call has survived 15 years of advancements in video conferencing.  The equipment you need to do a video conference call used to be very expensive and require a huge amount of bandwidth.  So the telecommunications expense to have the ability to do a video conference was also huge.  The video conference now can be done at home using your Internet connection and equipment that can be purchased just about anywhere.  Businesses can purchase a small video conference system and have it installed on existing telecommunications infrastructure.  So video conferencing is now easy and cheap.  Why isn’t everyone talking to each other on a video phone like the Jetsons?  A number of reasons have slowed the growth of video conferencing while the phone conference call continues to grow.  You must go to where the system is and that means you need to be in the office.  The home systems are not really business capable and the mobile application is not there yet either and universally available as you need a certain type of phone.  A phone conference call can be done from anywhere and today business people are very mobile so having to be in a central location to do all your conference calls is not really practical.  And the biggest reason I think is that people are just not comfortable with themselves on TV.  Maybe the next generation, the YouTube generation will be more comfortable with it but most people I know do not like being in front of a video camera.
    • VOIP Conferencing – Everyone now has a good Internet connection so why aren’t we talking to our PCs yet?  One reason is you need to be in front of your PC in order to talk through it and again people are now mobile.  Quality is much better than it used to be but VOIP quality is still only as good as the connection and some people still have bandwidth issues.  And a lot of people don’t even have a microphone connected to their PC.  It is just not what we are used to doing.  A phone conference call only requires the same device everyone is familiar with, the phone.
    • In House Systems – Over the years every phone system manufacturer has developed a way to do a phone conference call through their system.  But the quality of the connection is limited and so are the number of people you can connect to the conference call.  And it also requires the moderator to dial out to people and connect them to the conference call.  The in-house conference call systems you can buy are hard to justify from an expense point of view and require someone to maintain.  A conference call service can do the job better and cheaper than an in-house system.

    So, you can see that a phone conference call continues to grow because none of the other options are as universally known, easy to use and inexpensive.

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    Audio Conference Calls should be Reliable

    Friday, January 7th, 2011

    With Audio Conference Calls the one thing you should not have to think about is reliability. When you go to an in person meeting in a conference room you take it for granted that the lights in the conference room will work. A conference call should be no different. Audio conference calls have been around for a long time and at this point if the conference call service company has taken the proper precautions reliability should not be an issue. Here are some of the steps that Zip Conferencing has taken to ensure that our customers can quality and reliability with every conference call.

    • Direct Digital Connections to the Public Telecommunications Network – The Public Telecommunications Network is the main network that all of us use to complete phone calls.  Audio conference calls are no different than a regular phone call except our teleconferencing equipment is what you call into and makes it possible for multiple parties to speak together.  So the better the connection to the network the better audio conference calls will sound.  Zip Conferencing employs direct digital connections to ensure a high quality reliable connection.
    • Multiple Telecommunications Carriers – What happens to audio conference calls if the telecommunications carrier has an issue?  If there is a major outage on the carrier the ability to connect to the conference call will be compromised.  Zip Conferencing uses multiple telecommunication carriers in case one has a major outage we can reroute the traffic to another carrier so that you can get to your conference call.
    • Back Up Power Systems – Audio conference calls are dependent on the equipment that makes them possible and they need consistent power in order to operate.  Zip Conferencing has a battery and generator power back up system in place that provides for uninterrupted power in case of emergency.  The generator will continue to operate as long as is necessary making sure your conference calls are there when you need them.
    • Back Up Conference Call Equipment – Audio conference calls are conducted on a piece of equipment referred to as a conference call bridge.  It is basically a computer with thousands of connections for conference call participants.  And like any computer, despite regular maintenance they sometimes fail.  Zip Conferencing has constructed a network that includes back up live equipment so that if anything happens to a conference call bridge we can switch to a working piece of equipment without any loss in traffic.

    If you are looking for a conference call service provider for your audio conference calls you should be looking for quality and reliability first.  If you select Zip Conferencing you will get quality, reliability and the most affordable rates anywhere.

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    Are Conference Calls Too Convenient?

    Friday, January 8th, 2010

    We are more connected than ever before.  Between the email, voice mail and BlackBerry or other PDA it is difficult to escape the endless stream of information from your work and personal life.  It just seems to me we are heading to where there is no escaping work and like many of the other modern day work convenience maybe conference calls are getting too convenient.

    Let’s face it, you can do a conference call from anywhere.  Just like you can talk to people from anywhere, I don’t even want to know all the places that calls are done from, conference calls are as convenient as your next cell phone call.  When cell phones first came out the conference call service industry would discourage people from using them on a cell phone because they introduced a lot of noise and the networks were such that a dropped call during the conference call was pretty much a certainty.  So, naturally our customers would call us and complain about the conference call service because they were losing participants during the call of there was a lot of noise on the call.  And inevitably when our operators would join the conference call we would identify the culprit and most times it was a participant on the conference call on a cell phone.  Well that has certainly changed.  Now most of the participants on a conference call are probably on a cell phone.  With the cell phone networks improvement and better equipment you can join and participate on a conference call from anywhere you can get a cell phone signal.  And that is just about anywhere.

    And now that people can get you just about anywhere they can also get you just about anytime.  People seem to expect that since you have a cell phone than I should be able to reach anytime, anywhere.  So, before when you would schedule a conference call with Asia, for instance, the participants would schedule the conference call for a time that was good for all concerned, knowing that people needed to be in the office during normal work hours to conduct the call.  But know it seems that people just assume you can get on a call anytime.  My wife, for instance, is regularly asked to attend conference calls with other parts of the world at all hours of the night.  The other night she had three conference calls from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm at night with Australia and Asia.  They just don’t seem to think that there are any boundaries since you are always accessible.

    So, what do you think?  Are conference calls too convenient?

    www.zipconferencing.com

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    Conference Calls for Human Resources

    Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

    Clearly, one of the main missions for Human Resources departments is to clearly and concisely communicate with the employees in a company.  And with the employees in a company becoming more and more spread out how does the Human Resources department continue to handle effective communications with these remote employees.  Why through conference calls of course!

    Conference calls enable the Human Resources department to do their job effectively without the need for extensive travel to remote employee locations.  All of the necessary regulations can be satisfied by holding conference calls and providing information to the employees separately.  Or you can hold a web conference and go through the information live with the employees.  The need for signatures on any documents acknowledging receipt of the information can be accomplished through the mail.  And all while the Human Resources personnel sit at their desk.

    What about a new employee, especially one who is working remote?  The Human Resources personnel can use conference calls to introduce multiple new employees to company policies and benefits.  By doing several new employees at the same time the Human Resources department saves time and makes sure that all employees are getting the same materials at the same time.  Questions that the new employees have can be shared which helps avoid answering the same question multiple times if handled on a separate phone call instead of a conference call.

    And there is no more effective way to conduct training than using conference calls or a web conference.  Many companies do not have the room necessary to pull employees into a central location and train them even if the cost to do so is not a barrier.  Using conference calls for training allows you to share the same information across the employee base in a fast, efficient and affordable manner.  Using a web conference combined with conference calls allows you to not just share information with the participants, but you can also insert questions into the presentation to encourage participation and increase retention.  You can even upload files into the web conference that participants can download during the presentation if necessary.

    Today with smaller numbers of staff in Human Resources shouldering an increasing responsibilty for disseminating information and training to  remote employees, conference calls have become an essential tool.

    www.zipconferencing.com

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