Incumbent telecom companies priced teleconferencing services at high rates (e.g. over twenty cents per user minute) and most companies were willing to pay these rates to guarantee reliable and quality service. Now in recent years the conference calling 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 improved services.
The competitive landscape now includes dozens of companies in addition to the incumbent telcos. Organizations and individuals that want to use conference calling now have a far wider menu of choices. Within that spectrum of providers are free conference calling offerings such as Rondee that meld free conference calling with web based scheduling and other productivity tools. These companies do not charge users for the reason that they use a toll number as opposed to a traditional toll-free number. Thus, such free conference call services are not free in the same sense that air is free. They do require minutes of phone usage.
However, such services are increasingly being thought of by users as essentially free because many phone plans now offer flat rate "all you can dial" and most cell phone plans no longer carry added charges for long distance phone calls. Due to these trends, conference calling has become available to a far broader market of users as the following examples illustrate.
Non profit entities have become voracious users of conference calling services. The ever escalating cost of travel combined with constrained finances of most non-profits, makes conferencing a good tactic for reducing cost and maximizing productivity. In general, non-profits rely on formal and informal approaches to networking. When these networks extend beyond physical boundaries, conference calling becomes the only practical method of quality communication. A number of non-profits including those that focus on literacy, hunger, and environmental issues, have effectively used conference calling to increase participation and coordinate plans.
Student groups have found significant benefit in using conference call systems to increase collaboration across universities, cities and states. Most campuses feature dozens, if not hundreds of active student groups. Sometimes these clubs are chapters of regional, state-wide or even national organizations. Due to the budgetary realities of student life, it would be impractical for the individual members of these disparate groups to meet in person. Teleconferencing thus becomes the ideal way for members to stay in touch and discuss topics of shared interest.
Political campaigns now use teleconferencing conference calling on a frequent basis. In certain cases it is used to allow candidates to connect with contributors or volunteers. In other cases, 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, Republican candidates in New Hampshire received extensive media publicity on highly publicized conference calls undertaken to reassure big donors and influential political analysts 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 well 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 Eastern Asia, discuss design themes with graphic artist designers (in the case of Web 2.0 companies), or simply discuss work-plans with disparate members of the core group.
In summary, 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 advent of new business models that the availability of these services has become quite ubiquitous.
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Bob Letterman talks and writes frequently about communication related topics. He consults to a variety of industries that use communication technologies around conference calling, as part of an integrated approach to increase productivity. His clients include free conference calling services such as Rondee.
