Eons ago I offered up some ways to teleconference for free. Since a year and a half is a long time in the tech world, it’s time for an update.
Of the three free teleconferencing services I wrote about back in January 2006, all are still in business and still offering free teleconferencing. But I don’t use any of them anymore because I was looking for more features without more cost. For general free conference calling, FreeConference is still a useful service and my faculty department uses it for our telephone meetings.
I look for these features in a free teleconferencing service:
- My own 24/7 on-demand dial-in number and PIN, which I can share with colleagues or clients any time I want.
- Ability to record the calls or parts of calls and download the recording—also without charge—for later use by me or others on the call.
- Easy teleconference call management from both my telephone dial-pad and my computer screen (mute, lock the call, attendee list, etc.).
- Reliable service with optic lines and good sound quality.
- Support for VOIP services like Skype, since more and more of my clients are using it.
For my mediation business, I had been using LiveOffice’s free teleconferencing, but they’ve now broken their relationship with the provider of the free portion of their services. There’s still a relative bargain to be had at LiveOffice with 8-cents-per-minute toll-free teleconferencing services, but why pay anything if I can get all that I need and good quality for free? Yep, my mum was a Scot and the thriftiness is showing!
For now, I’m continuing to use the free teleconferencing that used to be managed by LiveOffice and is now handled by the unfortunately-named Basement Ventures. It’s been an easy transition so far and the features meet my criteria.
I also know a number of small business professionals in the service sector who use NoCostConference contentedly. It seems feature rich as well, though I’ve not tried it.
Do you use a free teleconferencing service you like? Or have you used NoCostConference and have some comments on the experience? I’d love to learn of more options and hope you’ll leave a comment to share.
Copyright © 2007 by Tammy Lenski. All rights reserved.
Photo credit: akkia
Tammy:
Thank you so much for this posting today! I had been looking at LiveOffice for quite some time as an adjunct to my practice and I had wondered why they were less than fully responsive. It seems they were transitioning and I had no idea!
I run an organization development consulting practice and we’ve just launched a web-based application that helps people on a conference call provide real-time, moment-by-moment feedback about what they’re experiencing on the call. It’s called CallConvener.com. We’ve done quite a bit of testing to get to the launch and, recently, we’ve been talking with our organizational clients about using this tool for real-time virtual focus groups. What we’ve been hearing is that this could be a very good way for an organization to uncover data around conflicts and issues that could be latent during conference calls, thereby enabling the facilitator of a call to either invite participation, live, when people are feeling conflict or concern or to use a post-session ratings graph to explore critical moments during the call and follow-up with a survey later on for more in-depth exploration of those concerns and issues.
As a mediator at the organizational level, and as an instructor on mediation as a university adjunct and trainer/consultant, I’m excited to explore this use of the application further.
I wonder if you or your readers have any experiences with mediation/conflict resolution in the virtual environment to share? After all, this is where so much of this potential work occurs today that it certainly bears some further exploration.
Thanks. Thanks again for mentioning the changes in the conference call world. LiveOffice has been very helpful for our recording of calls as we match the post-call ratings graph with the actual conversations.
Warmly,
Glenn Allen
Emberea Associates/CallConvener.com
You might want to try new InstantConference. http://www.instantconference.com
It’s a NO COST reservationless service that gives you your own dedicated dial-in number and access code. You can also request additional access codes to manage multiple clients all under one dial-in number and one master email account. Supports up to 150 callers for up to 6 hours.
Other features include a post conference summary report-great for client management and FREE recording! Coming in July!
Coming Soon: automated invitations, monthly reports, SharePlus(TM) desktop sharing and low cost toll-free service.
It takes seconds to sign up. Great sound quality and reliability. Check it out.
Glenn, thanks for taking the time to comment, raise a question, and share CallConvener. I’m really intrigued by CallConvener’s possibilities and plan to give you a ring when I’m back in the office (I’m in the northern part of New England teaching a mediation course to a school district). Do you have any more live demos coming up?
On another note entirely, I see you’re in upstate NY, in the region where I grew up. Saratoga is a lovely area to work from!
Best,
Tammy
Tammy:
Wow! We’re practically neighbors today!
I look forward to hearing more about where you grew up. I’m sure I know the town, whatever it may be. Yes, Saratoga is lovely, particularly in the summer.
It will be nice to be in touch. I’m guessing we probably have several friends in the field in common.
We’re actually changing the demo process right now from Live Demos to free trials. So, there are no more official demos set up. But, I’m always happy to set them up as needed. You can still either click on the icon on the main page, call, or email me. All work fine.
I look forward to connecting. I hope your session went well.
Glenn
Hi Tammy:
I moderate a weekly Conference Call devoted to sports betting and associated topics. Up until two weeks ago I never had a problem with the Live Office (now Basement Ventures) conference service. These last two calls have been different. The recording feature malfunctioned one time, and last night none of the web based controls would work properly. I could not mute and unmute individual callers, which for me is an important feature.
I can’t help but think this has something to do with the move away from Live Office. It’s hard to complain too much about a free service but I hope it’s fixed soon as when it does work properly it’s a terrific service.
I’ve also successfully used http://www.freeconferencecall.com, but they don’t have quite the set of features I’m looking for.
Thanks,
Jon Spevack
Thanks for that information, Jon. That’s what I’ve worried about with the move away from LiveOffice. If you find one that you like, I’d sure love to hear about it!
I read the news about video conferencing been installed in hotels. This is very useful for Diplomats and VIPs to keep them up to date with their routine work back at home.
Thank you so much for the information. I had NO idea where to start looking. Your posts have been invaluable!