Category: International Conference Calls

Virtual Conference Room with Audio, Video Conferencing, Chatrooms, text chat, document-sharing, and more, all in one place.

The rise of smartphones, tablets, Skype, and FaceTime have fundamentally changed how we work and communicate with one another. Just a few years ago, having a physical conference room was an absolute necessity for most businesses. Today, you may be wondering how you might put that space to better use. After all, a good portion of employees works remotely.

Even when a business hosts a video or web conference to include remote team members, it’s not unusual for those huddled around the conference room table to log in on their laptops so they can take advantage of all the real-time collaboration features offered by desktop video conferencing in their virtual conference room.

Whether your office has a conference room or not, creating a virtual conference room with audio, video, and web conferencing capabilities could eliminate the need for a dedicated meeting space without having to compromise on human interactions. Here’s what you need to know.

• It’s no longer necessary to invest in extensive audio / video hardware — For example, our desktop virtual meeting solutions run in a standard web browser and utilize each participant’s onboard webcam and microphone.
• Virtual conferencing is easy to use and packed with helpful features — Hosting or participating in a video or web conference is easy with our service. If you can navigate a basic website, you can easily manage a video conference. Features such as screen sharing, collaborative notes, recordings, chats, personal share space, pass-the-presenter, and a companion mobile app enhance the virtual conferencing experience. In fact, you’ll probably miss these tools the next time you’re in a regular in-person meeting.
• Geographic boundaries are no longer obstacles to getting things done — Getting your entire team together in person has become increasingly impractical, especially when many work from home, in co-working spaces, in various branch offices, in the field, or in entirely different countries for that matter.  With a virtual conference room, location no longer factors into the equation. Everyone simply joins at the appointed time from wherever they happen to be. They can join using any type of device, too, including desktop computers, laptops, smartphones, or tablets.
• Different types of conferencing services are available — It’s not always necessary to meet with webcams on or with screen-sharing enabled. In many cases, an audio conference is a desirable choice. We offer audio, video, and web conferencing, allowing you to build the right conferencing solution for your needs. Even better, each of our services is offered without a contract, which means you can add or remove services as your needs change. For example, if you’re working on a short-term contract with overseas vendors, you may need our international conferencing plan for a few months. Once that contract is up and you no longer need to communicate internationally, you could stop using the service without penalty. Likewise, you may want to host a series of web conferences after a product launch. Once you’ve completed the series and have posted the recordings on your website, you may want to take a break with that service. Again, since there’s no contract, you can start and stop the service as needed.

We offer a variety of virtual conferencing tools including international audio conferencing, virtual meeting service, special event conference calls, global call forwarding virtual phone numbers, and more — all without a long-term commitment on your part, and all powered by modern, high-quality telecommunications networks.

View Virtual Conference Room Services here

Pager Use Over 100 Years

When was the last time you saw someone wearing a pager? Largely a relic of the past, a few professions still rely on pagers for alerts including surgeons, nuclear engineers, and emergency responders. While pagers had their heyday in the 1980s and 1990s, their use dates back much further into the 20^th century. Here’s a brief history of the pager.

Pager of the 1920s

Pagers trace their roots to one-way radio, which first came into existence in the 1920s with the Detroit Police Department leading the way. Kenneth Cox, Walter Vogler, and Bernard Fitzgerald, all Detroit patrolmen and all amateur radio buffs began tinkering with radio sets they installed in a Model T police car. Cox later partnered with Robert L. Batts, an engineering student, to build a one-way radio receiver and antenna. In 1928, their one-way radio was installed and the Detroit Police Department began dispatching patrol cars by radio. Other police departments followed suit.

Pagers of the 1940s and 1950s

In 1949, Al Gross, who also invented the walkie talkie, cordless telephone, and CB radio, patented the first telephone pager device. It wasn’t called a pager just yet. The device was pocket-sized and included circuitry that responded selectively to specific signals. Gross showed his device to healthcare professionals at a medical convention in Philadelphia in 1949 but was met with skepticism. Most featured that the device would either update patients or interfere with their golf games! In 1950, Gross’s telephone paging system was implemented in New York’s Jewish hospital.

In 1959, the term “pager” was finally coined when Motorola entered the market with a personal radio communications device. This device was about half the size of a deck of playing cards.

Pagers of the 1960s and 1970s

Motorola’s 1964 PageBoy 1 was the first successful consumer pager. It alerted users with a tone.

Pagers of this era came to be known as “beepers” as that’s exactly what they did. They beeped you with an audible tone. A series of different tones meant that different meanings could be attached to the tone type. For example, a short beep might mean, “incoming ambulance” whereas a long tone might mean “call the dispatch desk.” Pagers during this time also had a limited range, making them useful in hospitals and buildings.

Voice pagers arrived, improving the practical use of pagers, albeit still within an onsite network. With voice pagers, instead of just an alert telling the user to call in to the dispatch desk for details, the pager relayed audible instructions such as “you’re needed in room 2.” Numeric pagers soon followed and were preferred over voice because they were more discreet. At this time, the displays were small and limited. Either the phone number the receiver should call would be displayed or an internal code for a predetermined action.

Pagers of the 1980s and 1990s

By the 1980s, wide area paging had arrived. This allowed pages to be transmitted via radio waves across wide distances — across cities, states, and the country. The popularity of pagers rose as a result. Businesses of all types recognized the value of pagers and equipped their field technicians and employees with pagers. Even drug dealers got into the act.

Alphanumeric pagers soon arrived, allowing dispatchers or pager callers to enter a text message. Now, instead of using internal codes, it was possible to send typed instructions. At this point, paging was still a one-way affair. The end user could receive the message but had to find a phone and make a call to respond in any way. In the late 1990s, two-way pagers appeared, enabling users to respond back directly from their pagers. Motorola’s Tango two-way pager could even receive email. In 1996, Research in Motion (BlackBerry)’s Inter@active Pager arrived complete with a QWERTY keyboard and graphical display.

The Death of Pagers

By 2001, paging manufacturers began exiting. It had become clear that new technologies were making pagers all but obsolete.

Sources:

https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/everyday-tech/who-still-uses-pagers.htm

https://blog.commontime.com/100-year-pager-history

https://ethw.org/Milestones:One-Way_Police_Radio_Communication,_1928https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/al-gross

How to Use International Conferencing to Communicate with a Large Global Audience

International conferencing bridges distances, bringing a diverse group together in a group telephone call. Our global conference calling service uses advanced telecommunications networks for optimal sound quality. Our bridge enables individuals to access the conference using country-specific access numbers. With support for up to 250 participants, you can host large international conference calls with people from around the world. Below are a few tips to help ensure that your next global audio conference goes smoothly.

International Conferencing Benefits

International Conferencing Provides Global Access Numbers

When you activate your global conferencing account with us, we’ll send you a list of all global access numbers.

As you create your event and invite attendees, make sure to provide invitees with the list of local and toll-free options for their countries.

Your participants will appreciate being able to join your global call using a local phone number. Not only is it more convenient for them, having a local access dial-in number moves uncertainty surrounding the cost of the call, which should improve participation. Attendees join your call free of charge.

Encourage the use of our free Connect app — Imagine joining a global conference call with just a tap. Our Connect app lets you do just that, eliminating the need to enter access numbers and passcodes. It works worldwide from any web-enabled device including computers, smartphones, and tablets.

As the host of the call, you’ll have access to helpful moderator’s tools, but attendees can use the app as well to join your conference. They simply tap to join and will be automatically called by the system and joined into the conference call.

In addition to the added convenience and value, the app offers, when attendees use it to join a call, their participation is billed at our dial-out rate. This rate is much lower than most of the toll-free dial-in rates, which can reduce the overall cost of your global conference call.

Have a colleague help moderate the call — There’s a big difference between hosting global conference calls with a small group and one with up to 250 attendees.

Having a co-moderator allows the conference to continue while the co-moderator handles various administrative tasks such as time- and agenda-management, taking notes, keeping track of questions to answer at the end of the call, and so forth.

Your co-moderator could also monitor emails, phone calls, and other channels in case some participants reach out indicating that they need help joining the conference. If that’s the case, they could then use the dial-out function to join them into the conference in progress.

Make sure you and your co-moderator know how to use the various moderator features — A single unmuted phone line could wreak havoc over your global conference call. Knowing how to quickly find and shut it down is crucial in minimizing its potential for disruption. Ideally, your co-moderator will take care of this so that you can continue sharing your message.

We recommend having the online event viewer open during your global conference call. This tool will show you a list of all participants as well as the status of their lines. It’s very easy to identify and mute the line that is generating noise.

Use the “lecture” mode as appropriate — One of the best ways to minimize interruptions is by using the lecture mode during your presentation. Use * 5 to turn this mode on and off. When in lecture mode, the only line open is yours. Everyone else will be able to hear you, but their lines will be muted. Once you’re done presenting and want to open up the call to other speakers or for a questions and answers session, press * 5 to exit out of lecture mode.

Take advantage of our operator assistance if needed — If you need help at any point, our live operators are standing by to be of immediate assistance. Simply press * 0 to reach an operator during your global conference calls.

International Conferencing Service

Finally, consider our assisted International Conferencing with audio and video conferencing service. Our operators help before, during, and after your international conference calls, handling all kinds of behind-the-scenes tasks so that you can focus on your presentation. We can assist on calls with just a handful of attendees to the largest global conferences of all with thousands of attendees.

Contact us today to learn more.

How to Use Video Conferencing for Startups

Whether you’re bootstrapping a new business or have received a much-needed infusion of cash, running a startup requires a lot of networking with others. Video conferencing can play a role in this from collaborating with your partners to pitching your business plan to investors. Below are a few ideas on how to use video conferencing in your startup.

First, let’s look at some of the advantages of video conferencing.

• Save on Office Space — Housing employees is expensive, even if you just have a few of them. What if everyone worked remotely? You’d save a lot of money on office space each month. Hundreds of companies exist that have adopted the virtual business model including Automattic, AgileBits, Buffer, Sticker Mule, and InVision (which has 700 employees). 

• Get a Competitive Advantage — Video conferencing frees you from the bounds of geography. The best people to bring on board may not live in your city or be willing to relocate. By eliminating the office, you can hire from beyond your local talent pool. Plus, remote work is seen as a desirable perk, helping your business attract top-notch talent in a competitive hiring environment. With less overhead and better talent, your startup will have an advantage over your competitors.

So, what’s a typical day in the life of a virtual startup like?

• Morning chats — How about starting each day with a quick video chat covering the day ahead. Keep it short, say 5 to 10 minutes max, and make it a routine. This gives everyone a chance to check in, stay informed, and get some face time. It’s also a good way to breed familiarity amongst a distributed team.
• Regular staff meetings — You could hold both regularly scheduled staff meetings in a video conference as well as ad hoc meetings as needed. Your regular staff meetings will be longer than your morning chats and will go into greater depth as well.
• Small group collaboration — Video conferencing enables you to connect in a face-to-face environment for real-time collaboration. Screen-sharing, file-sharing, and other features allow for a more immersive experience, much as if your team huddled around the same computer. Video conferencing is great for training, demonstrations, sharing, and brainstorming.
• Interviews — Speaking of hiring talent from a global talent pool, what better way to conduct an interview than with a video conference? As a candidate rises to the top, consider having his or her future colleagues join the conference to introduce themselves. This is a good way to introduce new hires to your remote culture.
• Touching base — In a regular office, you might stop and chat with your team members, casually getting to know them and finding out what ideas they might have or struggles they may be facing. You’ll need a virtual way to do something similar. Consider holding one-on-one video conferences with your team members periodically so you can get to know them and pick their brains. Just like your casual chats, these should be short and informal.
• Pitches — It’s not always practical to meet in person, and you have the next best thing in the form of a video conferencing plan. It’s part of your competitive advantage, so why not use a video conference as part of your pitch to investors? They’ll be able to experience part of what makes your business tick while also enjoying the fact that they don’t have to travel to a meeting.
• Investor relations — As your relationship with investors grows, you’ll want to stay in touch. Video conferencing is an excellent communications tool. Whether you need mentoring and advice or have an issue that needs their attention, setting up a quick video conference can bring everyone together no matter where in the world they may physically be.

Video conferencing is quickly becoming a must-have business communication and collaboration tool. It’s affordable and available on a contract-free basis.

Try it free for 30-days and experience the benefits of video conferencing today. No credit card required.

Conduct International Conference Calls Between USA and Southeast Asia

Business partnerships between companies located in the United States and international partners and suppliers in Southeast Asia have become commonplace. Communications methods including phone calls, international conduct international conference call, email, Skype, and text messaging make it possible to collaborate with one another despite the huge geographical distance between regions. Hold International conference calls between USA and Southeast Asia are an affordable, convenient choice for any company doing business with companies in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Brunei, or Timor-Leste (East Timor).

Here’s what you need to know.

Conduct international conference calls between USA and most of the countries in Southeast Asia is straightforward with our global audio conferencing plans. We have toll free access numbers specific to 7 of the 11 countries in Southeast Asia, making it extremely convenient for your international participants in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Brunei to join your global calls. Since these toll free access numbers work just like any other toll free number in those countries, participants do not need to dial their country’s exit code or make a potentially costly long distance phone call in order to join your audio conference. We also have some city specific access numbers in Southeast Asia, for example, Singapore City, as well as dial-out access. Our international toll free, regional, and dial-out conferencing rates are extremely competitive.

It’s a little trickier for participants in Laos, Myanmar, and East Timor as those countries are not currently supported with toll free access. The reasons for this vary, but not all countries have the infrastructure in place for toll free access to global conference calls. For example, East Timor was part of the Indonesian numbering plan up until 1999 when violence and Indonesia’s departure from the territory destroyed most of the telecommunications infrastructure. International access remains limited in East Timor.

However, they can still participate in your global conference calls. The two best ways to facilitate international conference calls between USA and Laos, Myanmar, or East Timor are:

• Dial-out — With our dial-out feature, the call Leader can dial participants directly and then join them into the international conference call. It’s a simple process, and our dial-out rates tend to be our lowest. If you only need to connect a few participants, dial-out is a practical choice. If you have a long list of participants requiring dial-out, you could either enter their numbers in advance and let the system automatically dial-out to them at the appointed time or request our live operators to assist you with this. Learn more about the dial-out feature here.
• The free Connect app — Our free connect app allows participants to join your USA to Southeast Asia conference call without having to dial an access number. It’s a convenient choice for any conferencing participant, even those who could otherwise access your call using a toll free access number. You’ll be billed for participants using the app at our low dial-out rates.

Hold international conference calls with your business associates in Southeast Asia is an affordable, flexible choice. We have extremely low rates and no minimum usage requirements. There are no contracts, no monthly fees, and you can cancel at any time.

Sign up today. Choose from two plans that have wide global toll-free coverage for your meeting attendees.

Legacy Plan – 119 global access numbers

Expanded Plan – 150 global access numbers

Origins of Telecom: The Chemical Telegraph

When you think of telecommunications, it’s really quite magical, isn’t it? Sending and receiving messages from around the globe in real-time (or close to it) is nothing short of amazing. But it’s not magic. Telecommunications is built on the imaginations of inventors who tinkered with wires, devices, and even chemicals in order to make their magic work.

One of these inventors was Samuel Thomas von Sömmering who, in 1809, improved on an earlier design by Francisco Salva Campillo for transmitting letters over a telegraph. Their designs used a series of wires to represent letters of the alphabet and numbers. Sömmering placed the wires on the receiving end into tubes of acid.

When an electric current was sent, the receiving wires electrolyzed the acid in the tubes in sequence. This released hydrogens bubbles next to the corresponding letter or number. An operator on the receiving end would observe the bubbles and then record the transmission. This technology was known as an electrochemical telegraph rather than the electromagnetic telegraph which opens and closes a circuit to establish a magnetic field, which then causes a mechanical movement.

Another one of these inventors was Alexander Bain, who invented the first technology believed to transfer images over a wire. His chemical telegraph, which you could consider an early fax machine, was patented in 1843 — still long before the telephone. It was an offshoot of the telegraph, intended to draw letters on one end and then re-draw them on the receiving end. Bain, a professor, philosopher, and amateur clockmaker, accomplished this by synchronizing two pendulums with a stylus to a clock. The motion scanned a flat metal plate containing letters of the alphabet line by line and then projected outlines of the letters onto a cylinder. The image quality was poor, but it certainly was proof of concept.

Bain faced what an article in Scientific America claimed was “unjust opposition” to his patent application by a rival caveat, Professor Morse’s chemical telegraph, which “…is not worth a single straw, and which cannot operate as a telegraph at all, that is as it is represented in his drawings, we humbly believe that the Chemical Telegraph of Prof. Morse was set up merely to blockade the path of another rival Telegraph.” Bain appealed the patent rejection and was ultimately awarded the patent. Bain eventually went bankrupt, and Scientific America observed a notable change in the inventor’s appearance “From being so much harassed and persecuted.”

The “image telegraph” soon followed, invented by Frederick Bakewell as an improvement to Bain’s chemical telegraph. Bakewell’s version replaced the pendulums with rotating cylinders and a metal stylus that travel across the cylinder as it rotated. The receiving end featured a similar setup, but with a chemical paper that was marked with the stylus as the cylinder rotated. He presented his invention at the 1851 World’s Fair in London. Not only could his device transmit text, it could also transmit simple lines. His version was not a commercial success, but the possibilities had certainly become apparent.

These early chemical telegraphs set the stage for future devices that would later include the modern fax machine.

Telecommunications Services Including International Conference Calls and
Global Call Forwarding Since 1996

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Sources:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bain-the-inventor-of-the-chemical-t/
https://mysite.du.edu/~jcalvert/tel/morse/morse.htm
http://www.connected-earth.com/Journeys/Livingwithtelecommunications/Livinginthetelegraphage/Fax/index.htm
https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-the-fax-machine-1991379
https://www.afax.com/frederick-bakewell/
https://faxauthority.com/fax-history/

How to Improve the Sound Quality of Your Audio Video Conference Call

Audio video conference call is a fact of modern business life, but sound quality remains elusive — and frustrating — for many conference calling users. Fortunately, there are measures you can take to improve audio. Below are a few tips to get you started.

Choose Your Service Provider Wisely

Test the services you are considering, paying close attention to audio quality. Starting with a high-quality service provider will help ensure that pops, low volume levels, echoes, and other distracting line noises don’t interfere with your audio or call-in video conference.

International Conference Call service with Superb Sound Quality

Set Up Your Environment and Minimize Distractions for your Audio Video Conference Call

Choose an appropriate environment, ideally a private, quiet area where you won’t be overheard and where the other participants won’t have to hear distracting background noises. Turn off phone ringers, audible alerts, and other potential noise makers such as fans, fountains, radios, and appliances. If you’ll be participating from home, instruct family members to stay out of the room. Pets are another concern when calling from home.

Use Mute

Use the mute function when not speaking. When dialing in using a telephone, the keypad command is *6. When using computer audio, click the microphone button to turn your audio on and off. All participants should be familiar with muting and unmuting their lines. If you’re hosting the conference call, you also have the ability to mute the lines of other participants.

Get a Microphone

Use a good quality cardioid microphone or headset. Cardioid microphones pick up audio from directly in front of the microphone rather than in a 360 degree field. Thus, when you speak into the microphone, your voice will be picked up but noise from behind the microphone (such as a computer fan running) won’t be picked up. If you used an omnidirectional mic, it would pick up everything. You could also use a standard headset typically used for phone calls.

Wear headphones

Not only do headphones help you to better hear other call participants, they’ll reduce the likelihood of audio feedback (make sure to turn off your computer’s speakers). Feedback occurs when a microphone picks up its output such as when you have the speakers turned up too high. Bypassing your speakers and wearing a headset will eliminate that problem.

Test Audio Video Conference Call Gear

It’s smart to join audio and video conferences a few minutes early to make sure that you have plenty of time to test your microphone, speakers/headset, and webcam.

Ready to improve audio on your next conference call? Start by testing one of our affordable audio, video, and web conferencing services today.

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How to Improve Web Conferencing Engagement

Ease of use and more comfortable end-users don’t necessarily mean that everyone is engaged during web conferences. Some people still dread them. Maybe they’re camera shy, or perhaps they simply prefer meeting in person. Some may be bored or unsure of what their role should be. Whatever the case, if you want your web conferences to be productive, increasing your participants’ engagement levels should help. Below are a few tips to consider to Improve Web Conferencing engagement.    

Technology and user adoption rates have converged, making web conferencing an increasingly popular communications tool. It’s become so easy, that obstacles that used to make web conferencing impractical no longer exist. Users are accustomed to clicking a link to launch a web conference in browser and signing in. Since most computers, tablets, and smartphones are already equipped with microphones, webcams, and speakers, there’s no need to purchase or set up equipment.

Be Selective

Your entire team doesn’t necessarily have to attend every single web conference you host. While it may seem to make sense to gather everyone into a longer session, it could be an engagement killer. Consider holding smaller web conferences with select individuals.

Run a Tight Ship

One reason people dread meetings is because they tend to drag on without a clear agenda. Creating an agenda and allotting a certain amount of each time per item is a good start. While you’re at it, assign a few key roles: timekeeper, chat moderator, and official note taker.

Send Personal Invites to Improve Web Conferencing

While most web conferencing software will automatically invite attendees, providing them with the pertinent scheduling and access information, sending a personal invitation gives you the opportunity to engage with participants before the conference.

For example, you might write, “Hey John, I’d like you to present the new product demo tomorrow during our weekly web conference. I put you down for 7 minutes. That should be enough time to show the video and share the story behind it. Let me know if you need additional time or have anything else you’d like to share.”

See what we just did? We set expectations. John now knows exactly what’s expected of him, so he can prepare accordingly. He’ll know to have the product demo video ready to go when it’s his turn to present. Not only can this help John better understand his role and eliminate any uncertainty he may have, we’re helping him to become more invested in the web conference. We asked for his input. He’s no longer an idle participant. This is true of the people you’ve asked to be the timekeeper and note taker, too.

Since John will be ready to present, there will be less time wasted waiting for him to locate and load the video. This improves meeting efficiency which will help with everyone else’s engagement.

Have a Little Fun

As your web conference gets underway, warm everyone up with a fun activity. For example, you could ask everyone to take and share a picture of their current view. This is fun when your team is located in different states or countries. Don’t spend too much time on this — just a quick warm up. Schedule this at the top of the agenda and then quickly jump into the heart of the web conference.

Draw Out the Introverts to Improve Web Conferencing

Web conferences are great for introverts, but they may still have trouble getting a word in if others tend to dominate the conversation. Periodically call on individuals, asking for their input. Encourage participants to use the chat box to jot down their ideas and questions throughout the presentation. Ask your chat moderator to keep track of these questions and ideas (culling out any duplicates or comments that have been resolved) so you can address them  during the Q&A.

Keep Your Web Conferences Short

Shorter, more focused meetings tend to be more effective than long, drawn out ones, so keep your web conferences short, too.

Send a Follow-up and Share Your Notes and Web Conference Recordings with Participants

Finally, after the meeting, promptly send a follow-up, wrapping up what was discussed and what needs to be done. Including your notes and the recording is helpful.

Improve web conferencing engagement starts with a reliable, easy-to-use desktop web conferencing solution.

Try a free 30-trial of Video Pro video conferencing today and put these tips to good use!

How to Minimize International Conference Call Distractions

A few years ago, researchers from Research Now surveyed business conference call users about their experiences. They found an average of about 13 minutes of every conference call was wasted on interruptions and distractions. If your typical conference call runs about a half hour in length, losing 13 minutes to distractions puts a serious damper on the productivity of your global audio conferences. Fortunately, you can take matters into your own hands to minimize distractions and keep your calls productive.

Let’s look at the most common international conference call distractions so that you can recognize and avoid them:

• Getting started — Small talk, finding out who’s on the call, waiting a few extra minutes to ensure everyone else has had a chance to join the call, sending text messages to attendees who haven’t joined the call, is one of the biggest distractions. If your global conference call starts at 9:00am, many attendees will have joined a few minutes early. Waiting until 9:05 or 9:10 to start could mean up to 15 minutes of time wasted. Multiply that times the number of attendees you have on the line and you’re looking at a serious loss of productivity.
• Late joiners — Late joiners are disruptive, too. They may announce themselves and apologize for their tardiness — or even expect a quick synopsis of what they’ve missed. 
• Background noise — It’s a common conference call courtesy to mute microphones when not speaking, but this doesn’t always happen. Whether someone doesn’t know any better or merely forgot to mute their line, background noise can be very distracting. For example, if a participant is typing notes on a keyboard, the sounds of typing could easily be heard by all. Likewise, landscapers with lawnmowers and leaf blowers outside one of your attendee’s office could drown out the speaker’s voice.
• Fumbling with screen sharing — For video conferences, screen sharing is a useful tool. However, if the other person is unprepared for the handoff, it could be a time-consuming task to get up and running.

You’ll always need to get the global conference call started, have late joiners and attendees who fail to mute themselves, and you may need to share each other’s screens from time to time in a video conference. So, how do you manage all of the above? Here are a few ideas:

• Set expectations and start on time — Let your attendees know your global conference call will start promptly at the scheduled time, and suggest that they dial in a few minutes early to give them time to enter their passcodes and get settled. Depending on the nature of your conference call, you may even want to lock your conference once it gets underway. If so, let them know the call will be locked promptly, which is another incentive for attendees to be on time.
• Use operator assistance to track down late attendees — Locking your conference calls will eliminate the international conference call distractions of late joiners, but you may still want them to be able to attend your conference call, even if they must join late. Our operators can help and join dial key attendees who may have forgotten or had issues joining your call. Designate one of your colleagues to coordinate this or make arrangements before the conference call to have an operator track down any absentee participants. Meanwhile, start the conference call while without them. The operator will take care of the pleasantries and join these latecomers into your conference call in progress.
• Use the live event viewer to mute any noisy or unmuted lines — Our live conference viewer provides you with a graphical list of attendees and the status of their microphones. When you hear background noise, a quick look will show you exactly which attendee is responsible. From there, a simple click of a button will mute that caller’s line to avoid those audio international conference call distractions.
• Give the other presenter(s) a heads-up about screen sharing — If you know ahead of time who you might want to share their screens, it’s helpful to let them know you’ll be calling on them to share their screen at some point in the video conference. This gives them time to prepare a short presentation and have it open and ready on their computers. It also affords them the opportunity to close any other open applications that could be distracting when their screen goes live. If they’ve never used screen sharing, offer to do a quick practice run beforehand so they feel comfortable with how it works.

Whether you’re hosting a small audio conference with your distributed team or a huge global conference call with dozens of attendees, minimizing distractions will lead to a more productive call.

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How to Share Confidential Information More Securely During a Conference Call

Have you ever shared confidential information during a conference call? When discussing important matters with colleagues and business partners, it’s almost a given that you might discuss sensitive information. In fact, a Research Now Survey revealed that 93 percent of respondents had done just that on a conference call and 20 percent admitted to doing so frequently.

Conference Call Issues and Security

So, is that a problem? After all, you probably signed up for a conferencing plan specifically so you could communicate with your team, partners, and other key business associates on any number of topics. Assuming your call participants should be privy to the information, shouldn’t you be able to speak freely?

Absolutely, but it’s smart to make sure that uninvited guests are not lurking. Read our article on how to improve conference call security to learn the best practices for securing your conference calls. Here are a few more tips to consider when hosting an extremely confidential conference call.

• Remind attendees of the confidential nature of the call — At the beginning of the conference call, remind everyone that the call is for their ears only. Ask them to close their office doors for privacy, and if they are in a public space, to please leave the call until they can find a private environment.
• Consider Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) — You may even want to use non-disclosure agreements, especially if the conference call involves highly sensitive information or is part of a merger/acquisition process. If your attendees have already signed NDAs, remind them that the call is covered under the NDA.
• Prohibit call recordings — As the moderator of the call, you can certainly initiate a recording, which you will have full control over. Let your participants know that you’ll be recording the call should anyone need to review the information and explicitly state that any other recording is prohibited. Later, when sharing the audio file with participants, host it on a password-protected server and set an expiration date to assist with this conference call issue.
• Don’t overlook other media — Many businesses use audio conferencing in conjunction with web conferencing for a richer multimedia experience. You may want to prohibit screen captures or limit the information that you share in your presentation. Similarly, it’s not unusual to share files or send attendees files as email attachments during or immediately following a conference call. PDF’s are another conference call issue. A little advance planning is helpful. For example, if you have a PDF that is relevant to the call but with a few lines of sensitive information, you could either password protect the PDF so that only your attendees will be able to open it in the future or redact the information you want to protect from prying eyes.

Conference Call Issues and Steps

Will these steps (in conjunction with dialing participants directly, locking your conference calls, and other conference calling security measures), stop all corporate spies, hackers, or unscrupulous individuals from their evil deeds? No, but they will put attendees on notice that you take the protection of your information seriously and that they should, too.

Conference Call Services

How to Use a Virtual Global Phone Number When On an International Tour

Why you may need a Global Phone Number and a Mobile Phone

Mobile Phones can be used by a rock star, musicians, stage actors, dancers, performers, crew members, business professionals, military service members, or a world traveler, going on an international tour or any sort means extensive time away from home — and your loved ones. Mobile phones are wonderful tools that can help you stay in touch, but they don’t always work as expected from one country to the next. Plus, international roaming charges are likely to put a damper on your international phone conversations. Fortunately, a global phone number is a cost-effective solution that enables you to be reached by phone no matter where in the world you might be.

What is a Virtual Global Phone Number?

By being “virtual,” this type of phone number is not tied to any given physical phone line. Rather, you can change where the phone rings at any time, to any phone number. Since it is also a global phone number, this means that you can forward your calls to any phone in the world and take advantage of our low international call forwarding rates.

For example, if your family and friends are in the United States, you could get a toll free virtual global phone number for the United States and then set your “ring to” number to ring to your hotel phone in Paris, France. To your callers, it’s a typical toll free phone call. Behind the scenes, that call is forwarded over our modern fiber optic telecommunications network to your hotel room in France — bypassing the typical (and expensive) international long distance carriers that your calls would normally travel through.

The Flexibility of Using a Virtual Global Phone Number When On an International Tour

When on tour, you’re rarely in one place long. After a night in France, you could find yourself in Germany, Ireland, UK, or Switzerland before heading off to another country — or continent — a few days later. When you have a virtual global phone number, your callers don’t need to try to figure out where you are and how to reach you because they’ll always dial the same exact phone number every time. Instead, you’ll change the ring to number as you travel around the world.

Thus, an example ring-to strategy might look like this:

• Paris, France: Ring-to number set as hotel room phone number
• Berlin, Germany: Ring-to number set as a disposal cell phone purchased in Germany
• Dublin, Ireland: Ring-to number set as a phone line at a temporary office space you’ve rented for the day
• Nova Scotia, Canada: Ring-to number set as your personal mobile phone number
• Iceland: Ring-to number set as your hotel phone number 

Using  a Virtual Global Phone Number to Make Cheap Calls Home

The ability to receive phone calls from home while on tour is reassuring; however, there will likely be times when you’d like to initiate the calls. Our contract-free global phone numbers work in the opposite way, too. For example, if you’re staying in Paris, France for a few weeks, it might make sense to order a global call forwarding number that’s local to Paris. That way, you could make a local call, but set the ring to number to the phone number of whomever you are calling — no matter where in the world they may be. Since our virtual global phone numbers are offered without a contract, they’re perfect for short-term use such as when a job, assignment, or tour requires overseas travel.

Learn more about Virtual Phone Number for International Use

Origins of Telecom: Early Video Conferencing Tech – CU SeeMe

Video conferencing has become the next best thing to being there in person, but it wasn’t always as easy and intuitive as it is today. In 1964 the first video phone technology, called Picture Phone, from AT&T debuted at the World’s Fair in New York. The 1980s saw the first video conferencing system from Compression Labs. By the 1990s, Macintosh released CU SeeMe, the first video conferencing software for personal computers, but it was limited to Macintosh users until 1995 when Windows version was released — and it was nothing like the full screen, high resolution video conferences you’re familiar with today.

CU SeeMe v0.1 arrived in 1992 as a video conferencing application that had no audio for the first two years of its existence. While you and another participant could see one another, you couldn’t hear each other unless you used a phone. Back then, webcams were not common. Thus, users needed to purchase a webcam in order to use the app. Likewise, Internet speeds back then were much slower than we’re accustomed to today with most users using dial-up networking. The video images were displayed in tiny 4-bit grayscale windows measuring either 320×240 or 160×120.

CU SeeMe was initially developed by Cornell University Information Technology as a free desktop videoconferencing tool to be used over high-speed campus-wide / company-wide LANs. While intended for high speed networks in an enterprise-type environment, individuals found their own uses for CU SeeMe, using the app over their slow dial-up networks to work, play, and interact with one another.

Users could also connect to what was known as a “reflector,” which gave them the ability to join a virtual community filled with other CU SeeMe users. More than 30 users at a time could join real-time video chats on any number of topics.

By 1994, audio support had been added, allowing for real-time videoconferencing without having to use a separate phone. However, many users didn’t use audio, opting instead to use the text chat feature included in the software. The use of voice was sometimes frowned upon due to factors such as the work environments at the time and the fact that many users didn’t have sound cards and speakers, and thus, wouldn’t be able to hear the audio.

In 1998, the commercial licensing rights were transferred to White Pine Software. A series of mergers and acquisitions and rebranding followed.

Today, CU See Me is largely a relic of the past, but it set the stage for the desktop video conferencing tools of today.

View Video Web Conferencing details

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Sources:
http://ftp.icm.edu.pl/packages/cu-seeme/html/Welcome.html
http://sattlers.org/mickey/CU-SeeMe/index.html
http://www.umich.edu/~comm464/virtcomm/mingchen/
https://www.eztalks.com/video-conference/history-of-video-conferencing.html
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/48951/White-Pine-Takes-Ownership-of-CU-SeeMe.htm

How to Transform Desktop Video Conferencing from a Tool into a Perk

Desktop video conferencing is a valuable communications tool for businesses of any size, instantly enabling you to hold face-to-face conferences with others around the world. However, it’s more than a just a tool that increases employee productivity and strengthens customer relationships; desktop video can also be seen as a perk — one that could enhance the lives of your employees and foster loyalty. Below are a few ideas for transforming desktop video conferencing from a tool into a perk.

• Remote Work — According to Global Workforce Analytics, 80 to 90 percent of the United States workforce says they would like to telework at least part-time. There are a lot of benefits to both the business and the employee surrounding telecommuting, and desktop video conferencing can certainly play a key role in facilitating such an arrangement.
• Greater Flexibility — Desktop video conferencing doesn’t necessarily mean you must be tethered to a PC in order to participate. Users can log in using tablets and smartphones, allowing for any number of flexible scenarios.
• Reduced Travel — Business travel is a fact of life for many working professionals. While many enjoy time away from the office, frequent travel can become burdensome. Having the option to meet with customers in a video conference, at least some of the time, rather than traveling to meet them could be a welcome relief to your team members.
• Increased ProductivityWhen Traveling — When an actual trip is required, desktop video conferencing canstill play a starring role. For example, your traveling employees couldparticipate in your staff meetings remotely by logging in with theirsmartphones. For those on extended assignments overseas, desktop video conferencing with their family members could make a profound difference on their experiences, helping them to stay connected despite distances.
• Training and MentoringOpportunities — Desktop video is an excellent delivery system for training andmentoring sessions. Oftentimes, the best trainers, coaches, or mentors are notphysically close, but with desktop video, they are just a quick videoconference away.
• Better Access toDistributed Colleagues and Superiors — Similarly, desktop video makes it easierfor employees to build relationships and collaborate with their colleagues andsuperiors located in different locations.  

Positioning your desktop video conferencing solution as a perk rather than just another business tool could improve user adoption, productivity, job satisfaction, and employee loyalty and retention. Your employees will love the benefits associated with the occasional remote workday, greater flexibility, enhanced collaboration, reduced travel, and more while your business will reap the rewards of improved productivity and increased employee engagement. It’s win-win!

Our 30-day free trial ofVideo Pro desktop video conferencing is a great way to discover how desktop video conferencing can benefit your entire office. It’s loaded with features, easy to use, and affordably priced.

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Source:

Latest Telecommuting Statistics

How to Conferencing Tools Help Build a Collaboration Culture in Your Business

Looking to improve the spirit of teamwork in your organization?

Collaboration has been shown to be extremely beneficial to businesses and their employees. For example, a few compelling benefits include: engaged employees, better retention, increased profitability,productivity gains, more productive meetings, improved innovation, andincreased business velocity. However, fostering collaboration is not as simpleas sending out an email telling your team to collaborate. It requires acompany-wide mindset shift as well as tools to facilitate it. Here are someways audio and video conferencing can help.

• Use collaborative technology — Tools like Slack andTrello have become mainstream, but they’re not the only collaborative tools toconsider. With today’s mobile and remote workforce, audio, video, and webconferencing are a must. Audio conferencing is a convenient, all-around choicefor discussions, questions and answers, status updates, and other groupmeetings. Video conferencing adds the ability to see one another face to face,which is particularly important for virtual teams where team members may neverinteract in person. Video and web conferencing are other great collaborationtools for remote teams, especially when it’s necessary to share screens, watchvideos together, or share files.

• Create shared goals — Think about your organization’s current incentive program. Does it incentivize individual or group effort? It’s natural for employees to focus on their individual goals, but that can interfere with collaboration. In contrast, shared goals encourage collaboration. So, gather your team in an audio conference and find that common ground.

• Recognize, share skills,and break down silos — Everyone has something of value to offer, but others may notrealize it. Barbara in accounting, for example, may be a Photoshop whiz. If it makes sense, invite her to your next marketing conference call and get her input. While you may not want her pulled from her main accounting tasks, her Photoshop skills may be of value to the marketing department periodically. Encouraging cross-functional collaboration could be beneficial. Likewise, encourage the sharing of information across departments. This helps reinforce the shared goals, helps everyone understand their role in the greater scheme ofthings, and provides opportunities for further sharing and brainstorming. Itcan also reduce the potential for redundancy.

Lead by example — Initially, you may need to assign collaborative tasks to your team, helping them to shift from individual to group work. Likewise, show your team how important collaboration is by openly collaborating with others, hosting collaborative video or audio conferences, and sharing credit with your collaborators.

Make it easy — While technology can help foster collaboration, if it’s too complicated, your plan will backfire. An elaborate video conferencing platform requiring specialized hardware and technical skills won’t get used nearly as often as a simple, user-friendly desktop video tool that works from a web browser.

Examples of Conferencing Tools

US/Canada Conferencing Service

International Conference Call Service

Video/Web Conferencing Service

Conferencing Tools enabling Communication is the backbone of collaboration. Without it, everyone is back in their own private silos, doing their own thing. Our audio, video, and web conferencing plans offer an affordable, convenient, and user-friendly way for your employees to communicate and collaborate — whether they’re in the same building, city, state, or country or in an office on the other side of the world. With the right mindset and conferencing tools, you can build a culture of collaboration in your organization.

Conferencing Tools

How to Talk Your Boss into a Global Conference Calling Service
When it comes to communicating with a global team, you know that email, Slack, and other text-based communications tools often fall flat. Sometimes, you need to get together on a conference call, but that’s a challenge when international participants can’t dial a local phone number and are forced to pay international long distance charges to connect to your call.

Our global conference calling plans solve these problems, making international collaboration both inexpensive and practical. They’re loaded with quality features and are offered with some of the lowest per minute rates you’ll find anywhere. You’re onboard, but now it’s time to convince the boss. Here are a few pointers to help you do just that.

• Show her how a global conference call service will benefit your team — Your boss wants your entire team to be able to collaborate efficiently but may not have previously considered global conference calls. Perhaps she has misconceptions about the potential cost or thinks any old conferencing system will do the trick. Regardless of what she may think, she’ll also want to know why international conferencing is important to your work, so be prepared to show her its positive benefits. For example, will a 10-minute conference call with your colleagues in Italy save you hours of back-and-forth via email? That’s a huge productivity gain for everyone involved.

• Share example global conference calling servi costs — Your boss will also be curious about the potential costs involved, so be prepared with real examples. Our website lists the per-minute calling costs for more than 150 countries. Find the rates for your international colleagues and prepare a few example scenarios such as a 30-minute conference call with participants from Italy, USA, German, Australia, and Hong Kong. You’ll both be pleasantly surprised at just how affordable global conferencing is with our service. Make sure to point out that ours is a contract-free, pay-as-you-go service with no minimum requirements or surprise charges.

• Invite her to join you in an international conference call — As the saying goes, seeing is believing, so consider hosting an international conference call and asking your boss to sit in. That way, she can observe your team at work and experience the crystal clear sound quality and other great features like moderator dial-out for herself. Once the conference is over, email her the attendance report and MP3 recording of the call to show her how well documented your global conference calls will be.

• Ask for a trial run — Now that she’s educated about the benefits of our global conference calling service, how it works, and how it will benefit your organization, she may be ready to approve your request right away. If not, ask for a trial run. Remember, there’s no contract, no long-term commitment, and no penalty for non-usage so there’s no risk in giving global conferencing a try.

By making your case, including your boss in a conference, and sharing the low costs, your boss will likely be receptive to a trial run where you can further demonstrate the value of global conferencing. We have a free trial which is perfect for that. View details global conference calling service details.