Teleconference Solutions No Longer The Exclusive Domain Of Big Business Users

In the course of the last twenty years or so, the conference call landscape has changed considerably. It was formerly true that only larger corporations had access to multi participant phone conferencing. Such systems were usually quite costly and often featured live operator participation on every call.

Incumbent telecom companies priced conference calling services at exorbitant rates (e.g. over twenty cents per user minute) and most corporations were willing to pay such charges to guarantee reliable and quality services. More recently the teleconferencing market has seen a flurry of competitive forces. A variety of factors have been responsible including telecom deregulation, dramatic improvements in internet technology and demand for better services.

The competitive landscape now consists of dozens of companies in addition to the incumbent bell operating companies. Organizations and individuals that desire to use conference calling now have a far wider menu of alternatives. Within that spectrum of providers are free conference calling services such as Rondee that meld free conference calling with web based scheduling and other related features. These services do not charge users because they use a toll number as opposed to a traditional toll-free number. Therefore, such free conference call services are not free in the same sense that air is free. They do require minutes of phone usage.

Notwithstanding that, such services are increasingly being perceived by users as essentially free because many telecom plans now offer flat rate unlimited dialing; and most cellular plans no longer have additional charges for long distance phone calls. On account of these factors, conference calling has become available to a far broader market of users as the following use-cases elucidate.

Non profits have become strong users of conference calling services. The high cost of travel combined with constrained budgets of most non-profits, makes conferencing a good tactic for reducing expense and maximizing productivity. In general, non-profits rely on formal and informal methods of networking. To the extent these networks extend beyond physical boundaries, conference calling becomes the only practical method of real communication. A number of non-profits including those that address literacy, poverty, and environmental issues, have effectively utilized conference calling to mobilize participation and coordinate plans.

Political campaigns now use teleconferencing conference calling on a regular basis. In certain cases it is used to allow candidates to connect with contributors or volunteers. Alternatively, it enables remote campaign workers to work with locally situated campaign staff. For state-wide or national campaigns, conference calling becomes even more important as a method of ensuring frequent communication because it is truly impossible to ensure a physical presence. In the most recent primary season, Democratic candidates in Iowa received extensive media publicity on extremely well publicized conference calls undertaken to reassure large donors and influential political commentators that their campaigns could survive the harsh pace of the campaign season.

Start-up companies have long felt the same need for conference calling as was true for established corporations. Yet, it was not until the development of cheap conferencing and free conferencing alternatives such as Rondee, that early stage companies could avail themselves of the benefits. New companies might use these systems to coordinate work with remotely located developers in Eastern Europe or Russia, discuss design themes with graphic artist designers (in the case of Web 2.0 start-ups), or simply discuss work-plans with disparate members of the core group.

In sum, conference calling is no longer the exclusive domain of large business users. Other possible users have long felt the need but it has only been with the development of new business models that the availability of these offerings has become more ubiquitous.

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