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In recent years, companies have grown and spread. Many employees do their work from home. Once the officers and employees may be thousands of miles away, getting everyone into the same room for meetings and training has become decidedly impractical for many companies.
That is why the conference - exchange of information in real time between people who are not in the same space - has become a major activity. American industry audio conferencing reported a revenue of $ 2.25 billion in 2004. Through teleconferencing, companies can conduct meetings, meetings with clients, training, demonstrations and workshops by phone or online instead of in person.
In this article we'll look at different types of conference calls, telephone conference calls to online meetings.
A simple phone call is a three-point connection, available in many homes as a telephone company service. Another very simple (but not necessarily effective) is to have two groups of people talking through a speakerphone. The boundaries of the three connection points and the sound quality of speakerphones make these options impractical for most companies.
Conference calls allow groups of people to communicate by telephone. Banks and brokerages often use conference calls to provide status reports to large numbers of listeners. Other businesses use conference calls to help employees to communicate, plan and brainstorm. To connect the call, attendees call a designated number (MeetMe conferencing), or an operator or moderator calls each participant (conference for this purpose).
Conference calls connect people through a conference bridge, which is essentially a server that acts as a phone and can answer multiple calls simultaneously. Software plays an important role in the bridge's capabilities beyond simply connecting multiple callers.
A company can have its own bridge or can contract a service provider for conference call hosting. Providers usually offer additional resources for conference calls, such as:
participant's choice
Registration link
operators or attendants
Companies using VoIP phones can also host conference calls themselves if the VoIP software supports them.
Many phone conferencing systems require a login and password to access the system. This helps protect confidential and proprietary information during the call.
The phones can add a visual element to conference calls, but businesses often need to share other visual information.
Teleconference online
The web conferencing allows people to communicate via text and video, and audio. The methods of web conferencing programs use simple chat and instant messaging to hold group discussions based on text. More sophisticated programs exchange visual information with webcams and streaming video. Some allow people to share documents online.
Companies can either purchase conferencing software and host their meetings themselves or use a hosting service. Hosting services provide the software and server space to conduct meetings. Either way, the company or the hosting service must have the software to coordinate the meeting and ample server space and bandwidth to host it.
The web conferencing programs combine tools already common to web pages and Internet communication. They bundle these tools into one interface to create an interactive meeting environment. These tools include:
HTML, XML and ASP
Java scripts
flash animation
IM
audio and video streaming
Some programs are entirely based on computer and Internet. Others use the phone system to distribute audio content. To participate in online meetings, participants should have:
a computer
an Internet connection
a phone, the audio content is not provided online
If the conference program has mechanisms webcam and audio chat with Internet-based PCs of the participants should have:
microphones
webcams
video capture cards
Generally, each report or online meeting features a moderator and participants. The moderator sets a time and date of the meeting, prepares the content and make sure everything is working properly before the meeting starts. Participants can view the presentation without giving back or can collaborate, based on the settings of the programs and resources. Generally, moderators can record the presentation for later viewing and to pass their moderator capabilities for participants during the meeting.
But what people can do these virtual meeting rooms? Let's find out.
Features of web conferencing
The web conferencing programs come with a variety of resources. Some may be combined with existing applications in the enterprise e-mail, calendar, message and staff productivity. Others allow participants to see the presentation on your web browser without installing any additional software.
Depending on the software, people can:
View slide presentations of programs like PowerPoint
draw or write on a plain white screen using the mouse or typing;
annotate images and diagrams using the same principle as the white screen;
transmit images or videos to other participants via a webcam (this increases the bandwidth required and can sometimes slow the transfer of the presentation);
view information from the desktop using the moderator's screen sharing;
share documents, often even if the participants do not have the software that created them, using application sharing;
maintain interactive sessions of questions and answers that integrate video and audio;
send public or private messages through instant messaging;
annotate or modify documents and spreadsheets from compatible applications
transfer files between the participants;
ask and answer questions via chat audio (such as an integrated part of the software) or by phone.
Once these meetings happen on the Internet, the programs include encryption and security options. Most programs require moderators and participants to use a login and password to access the meeting. Some use SSL or TLS encryption to protect data. Some companies also host web conferences on internal servers so that data remains behind the corporate firewall. The moderator or host can monitor who is participating in conference calls and through subscriptions.
A typical online meeting
Web conferences can vary greatly depending on the software, hosting and how the moderator runs the meeting. Here are the basic steps used with many meeting programs:
The moderator gathers content for the meeting, including spreadsheets, presentations and documents from other applications;
The moderator sets a time and date of the meeting and use the software to invite participants via email;
Participants accept the invitation and their calendar programs add the meeting on their calendars;
The meeting moderator opens the conference software before the meeting and make sure that the connections and content are working correctly;
When it comes to the meeting, participants click on the URL in the email invitation to access it;
The visual portion of the meeting is held in the meeting software or a Web browser;
The moderator and participants communicate by telephone with voice chat or instant messaging during the meeting;
At the end of the meeting, the moderator and the participants close their programs or browser windows and leave.