http://www.calliflower.com/2009/05/12/what-are-the-real-costs-of-free-conference-call-services/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-are-the-real-costs-of-free-conference-call-services Conference calling, Web sharing, unlimited flat-rate, high-security teleconferences Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:08:29 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://www.calliflower.com/2009/05/12/what-are-the-real-costs-of-free-conference-call-services/#comment-3 Tony Palik Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:23:31 +0000 Thanks Alec for this interesting comparison. I work for a small company with a geographically dispersed population that is probably above-average in conference all needs. However, we all have company mobiles with all-you-can-eat plans and flat-rate LD, so the free conference call model would seem to make sense. However, for those of us who want to use SIP clients, Skype, or Google Voice, the picture is less rosy. Some VoIP providers offer less optimal routing to (resulting in poor voice quality), Skype just refuses to terminate the call, and GV charges up to $0.25/min. The reason of course is the cost of termination to the rural ILECs where many of these services are hosted. I expect that this model will collapse at some point, but until that day comes, it has been hard to make a compelling case on the grounds of cost to abandon our current mode of operation. Thanks Alec for this interesting comparison. I work for a small company with a geographically dispersed population that is probably above-average in conference all needs. However, we all have company mobiles with all-you-can-eat plans and flat-rate LD, so the free conference call model would seem to make sense. However, for those of us who want to use SIP clients, Skype, or Google Voice, the picture is less rosy. Some VoIP providers offer less optimal routing to (resulting in poor voice quality), Skype just refuses to terminate the call, and GV charges up to $0.25/min. The reason of course is the cost of termination to the rural ILECs where many of these services are hosted. I expect that this model will collapse at some point, but until that day comes, it has been hard to make a compelling case on the grounds of cost to abandon our current mode of operation.

]]> http://www.calliflower.com/2009/05/12/what-are-the-real-costs-of-free-conference-call-services/#comment-2 Tsahi Levent-Levi Tue, 12 May 2009 21:14:25 +0000 Alec, While your reasoning and analysis is spot on, I think you missed an option. Once a company grows beyond a given point, it might become cheaper to simply purchase the conferencing infrastructure and manage it in-house as part of the telephony or IT services provided. Doing that will add a considerable upfront cost to the solution with an additional continuous maintenance cost, but will drop the other costs considerably. Tsahi Alec, While your reasoning and analysis is spot on, I think you missed an option. Once a company grows beyond a given point, it might become cheaper to simply purchase the conferencing infrastructure and manage it in-house as part of the telephony or IT services provided. Doing that will add a considerable upfront cost to the solution with an additional continuous maintenance cost, but will drop the other costs considerably. Tsahi

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