There have been many predictions ofValue the conference calls’ demise over the years. First, the video conference was going to be on everyone’s desktop and people wouldn’t bother with regular conference calls anymore. Then services came along that purported to provide free conference calls. Then everyone was going to be speaking into their PCs and wouldn’t use a phone anymore. And on, and on. The fact that conference calls done over the telephone are not only still here but doing so well is the basic fact that there is no better value if you want to have a high quality connection and be able to speak to a group of people at a distance.
Video conferencing has been around for a long time. So why aren’t we all looking at each other during our calls already. There are probably many reasons. But first and foremost it is not as easy as a conference call and not necessarily available to everyone. I mean these days it is hard to buy a PC without a webcam attached, but many people don’t use them or know how to use them. And the quality of the connection still has a lot to be desired. If anything, the call can be more distracting than anything. And then you have the whole social aspect. The fact that most people don’t feel comfortable having their image in front of themselves and broadcast to many people. It will be quite a while before video conferencing is as easy to use as a telephone.
I’ve addressed the concept of the free conference call in other posts, but in short nothing is really free. You simply can’t get a high quality conference call with toll free access for nothing. And toll free access for your participants is simply the right thing to do. And if you want to make sure the call is there when you need it to be and want a good sound would you trust it to a free service?
And we are also still a long way away from having an integrated device on our desktop that does all of our phone tasks as well. Can you do it today? Of course, but the complexities of getting it done is worse than getting the video camera to work and if you still have to connect to people using a telephone you still have to connect to the telephone network to do a conference call so you really aren’t gaining anything unless you eliminate that aspect.
One of the big drivers for new technology is saving money. Today, the costs of conference calls have come down to the point where it is difficult to justify putting up with any inconvenience to try to save a little money. Let’s face it, everyone has a telephone and that is really all you need to have and know how to use in order to join a conference call. And you will get a clear, high quality connection without any issues.
So, given all the choices that are out there, conference calls continue to grow because they still deliver the best value for the money.