Teleconferencing

[Marrow Man]

Has anyone on the PB used any of the "free" teleconferencing services available on the internet? If so, can you give pros, cons, recommendations for such services? Our presbytery will need to have a short called meeting in the near future, and we have decided to so via teleconference.

Here is one website I found: Teleconferencing, Conference Call, Conference Calling, Free Teleconferencing, Free Conference Call, Free Audio Conferencing
The service is free, but the participants (limited to 50) have to pay their own long distance fees to call in to the number provided.

Here is another page with several recommended services. I would be interested to see if any PBers have tried any of these:

 

[Zenas]

Just have every other person call one other person and put all of their phones on speaker phone. That might work.

 

[fredtgreco]

Tim,

I have used them, and they have virtually the same capabilities as paid (e.g. ATT) services: conference bridge, muting participants, recording as MP3, etc. The only real difference is the lack of a toll free number. Personally, I think that is an easy trade off. 99 out of 100 people have some form of "free" long distance now.

 

[Marrow Man]

Just have every other person call one other person and put all of their phones on speaker phone. That might work.

Think about what you are saying. Your father-in-law is going to be one of the guys calling in.

 

[Marrow Man]

Tim,

I have used them, and they have virtually the same capabilities as paid (e.g. ATT) services: conference bridge, muting participants, recording as MP3, etc. The only real difference is the lack of a toll free number. Personally, I think that is an easy trade off. 99 out of 100 people have some form of "free" long distance now.

So Fred, is the only "catch" that those calling in have to utilize their own long distance service? In other words, is it really a free service (other than the long distance)?

 

[Zenas]

Just have every other person call one other person and put all of their phones on speaker phone. That might work.

Think about what you are saying. Your father-in-law is going to be one of the guys calling in.

Have him be the recipient of a call, rather than a caller. Less chance for error.

 

[fredtgreco]

Just have every other person call one other person and put all of their phones on speaker phone. That might work.

Think about what you are saying. Your father-in-law is going to be one of the guys calling in.

Absolutely not. What happens if someone in the middle of the chain has a disconnect? Use a free conference system. I've used this several times:

Free Conference Call Services for Conference Calls - Free Conference Calling

It is also possible that one of the churches in your Presbytery has a Conference bridge. We do, and it supports up to 100 people calling our local number.

 

[Zenas]

Just have every other person call one other person and put all of their phones on speaker phone. That might work.

Think about what you are saying. Your father-in-law is going to be one of the guys calling in.

Absolutely not. What happens if someone in the middle of the chain has a disconnect? Use a free conference system. I've used this several times:

Free Conference Call Services for Conference Calls - Free Conference Calling

It is also possible that one of the churches in your Presbytery has a Conference bridge. We do, and it supports up to 100 people calling our local number.

Rev.

I was, of course, kidding. In reality, he should run a string to each church, connect them all, and put coffee cans on the ends. Problem solved.

 

[Josiah]

Hi Pastor Tim,

While it isnt perfect, I would recommend using Skype for your teleconferencing. I work as a salesman for a small technologie company in Redmond and we use Skype for all of our sales calls. Every time I have used it for a conference call or Webinar (with GoToMeeting, Webex, or adobe) it has worked very well. Some may object because the call quality isnt the best at times, but if you are not using it on a regular basis, you wouldnt notice. I happen to use it every single day and am used to it by now. Here is what they are offering:

Free calls, It’s what Skype is made for. Using Skype to call another person who also has Skype is totally free. Yep, absolutely nothing. Zip. Zero. Zilch.
Free Skype-to-Skype calls.
To anywhere in the world.
And at any time, day or night, morning or weekends.
Free calling
You’ve downloaded Skype, and so has your friend. Now you can get started on the really cool stuff – such as making completely free and great quality calls from your computer. That’s the great thing about Skype, you can use your internet connection and turn your computer into an internet phone and make free Skype-to-Skype calls.

You and your friend will need to have a headset (or use your computer’s built-in microphone and speakers) to talk to each other. You can really improve the sound quality of your calls with a headset, or take your calls to the next level with free video calls.

You can also use Skype to make terrific value calls to phones and mobiles.

I hope that this helps

 

[Marrow Man]

Thanks, Josiah. I thought about Skype, but I am considering this for a brief presbytery meeting. Let's just say that some of the folks involved might be "technologically challenged," abhor computers, whatever. It would limit the meeting to only those who could use Skype. Also, some of our churches are quite rural, and access to DSL-type internet is not always a possibility. Does Skype work with dial-up?

 

[uberkermit]

Thanks, Josiah. I thought about Skype, but I am considering this for a brief presbytery meeting. Let's just say that some of the folks involved might be "technologically challenged," abhor computers, whatever. It would limit the meeting to only those who could use Skype. Also, some of our churches are quite rural, and access to DSL-type internet is not always a possibility. Does Skype work with dial-up?

When I was part of a commission for our Presbytery, we did teleconferencing via Skype. Now I was the only one with Skype, but what I did was purchase some time and then I called the other presbyters on their landlines. This worked very well for us. The long distance rates to the States were roughly the same as within Canada (about 2 1/2 cents per minute) applied to each call out. So in my case, with three other presbyters in the conference call, I was paying a little less than 8 cents per minute. Of course, if any one of the other fellows had skype too, I could have just called them skype to skype, and only called the landline of the ones who did not have skype, thus saving the expense.