Home > Humanities And Science > Communication

Free Conference Calling

by Steve Valentino

With an increasing demand for conference call services, the market has remodeled itself to cater to various consumer demands and expectations. Free conferencing calls are not an altruistic offer by a few conference call service sectors, but rather an intelligent marketing and promotional strategy with an eye on long-term, hefty gains. Whatever the intentions of the service providers, the consumers stand to gain from it.

Most people are suspicious of anything that comes free. It is always advisable to check the background, reputation, efficiency, security and privacy policies, reliability and effective customer support service before taking up any conference call, free or otherwise.

However, the catch in free service providers is that they stand to get publicity, build awareness and promote their services. By giving free bandwidth to customers for a small number of participants (usually 25 or less) they are able to demonstrate their services. Customers might later rope them in for bigger assignments and promote them to those who inquire. Most of the money is made from big assignments involving 800 or more participants.

There are numerous online and offline options for free conference calling. They provide both web -scheduled standard conferences and reservationless standard conferences. Being fully automated, these services are cheap. The user uses a step-by-step guideline (online or otherwise) that aids in scheduling meetings, managing telephone calls, and generating access codes. The user is given a toll-free number and two access codes (either self generated or got from service provider), one for the user and another for the participants.

With a limit on the specified number of participants (25 or 50, differs according to service provider) and the time limits, the user can invite anybody, call at any time, and call locally, regionally or long distance. The user is not charged for the bandwidth but has to pay the telephone bills, whether local or long distance, to the telephone service providers. Each individual caller pays for himself. A call starts and ends when the dialer chooses.

A user cannot expect the service add-ons and various features provided by OACC (operator assisted conference calls). An added disadvantage is that only a specified limited number of participants can make use of this. For people who are not very computer savvy this might prove to be a challenge, especially as there is no operator service support. All the same, free conference calls are a good choice for those who seek inexpensive, secure, reliable and easy call conferencing.

More articles >>