Category: International Conference Call

Web conference remote workers and hires has become more common thanks to technology that bridges distances while allowing real work to get done. Various tools make it possible to interact with job candidates without requiring expensive travel. For example, you can use video and audio conferencing tools to conduct interviews remotely, allowing you and the candidate to interact in real time. Video conferencing allows you to see one another face-to-face, emulating an in-person interview. It doesn’t end there. Let’s look at how you can use web conferencing to help your new hire get up to speed during the on boarding process.

How to Use Web Conferencing to Onboard a Remote Employee

Share and Explain New Hire Paperwork

As with any new employee, there are a lot of forms to fill out including tax forms, contracts, NDAs, insurance forms, and more. Using a web conferencing tool allows you to share these forms electronically as well as interact using video or audio conferencing. Not only can you share the forms with the remote worker, you can go over each one as needed. Since you’ll be connected in a web conference, you can answer any questions about the forms or benefits package immediately.

Depending on the amount of initial paperwork you have, you might deliver and explain the company policy manual during this session or schedule a second web conference to go over it. It’s not a bad idea to share the manual at the end of this web conference, give the employee time to read it and then meet again in a second conference to go over expectations and answer questions of the Web Conference Remote Workers.

Conduct an Orientation Session

Once the paperwork has been formalized, consider using a web conference for orientation. If you’ve recently hired several remote employees, this can be a group conference which both saves time and effort on your part while helping them to feel part of a larger team. With our web conferencing service, your remote employees can join from around the world using a standard web browser and Internet connection. During the conference, you can present a PowerPoint, play YouTube videos, demonstrate company software and more. Consider having supervisors or even the CEO join the session briefly to introduce themselves or share their stories and vision.

Introduce the New Hire to the Team

Whom will the remote worker be working with on a regular basis? Whom will he or she report directly to? Schedule a “get acquainted” web conference between these key individuals. Work with the supervisor beforehand to set an agenda and invite the appropriate team members to the conference. For example, in addition to sharing some background information about each team member, the supervisor may want to discuss the current project or first assignment. 

Web Conferencing Remote Workers to Conduct Training Sessions

Web conferences remote workers are ideal for training hires. Whether you use a specific type of software that needs to be taught or have a certain philosophy or proven sales process you want all team members to be well versed in, web conferencing is an excellent tool for training. You can even record and repurpose these sessions with just a click of the record button.

Provide Feedback

Just as you regularly conduct performance reviews with your on-premises team, the remote worker deserves the same courtesy. Fortunately, web conferencing can be used in this situation as well.

Our desktop web conferencing tool is ideal for human resources departments, enabling you to conduct interviews and onboard new remote employees with ease. We offer a free, 30-day trial and competitive monthly rates without a contract.

Try Video/Web Conferencing Free for 30 Days here

Origins of Telecom: iPhone Infogear

The Apple iPhone is legendary and it’s hard to imagine any other product bearing its name. However, long before the Apple iPhone, there was another iPhone — InfoGear’s iPhone (later the Cidco iPhone). The iPhone InfoGear was released in 1998. It looked like a traditional office telephone, but with a large touchscreen display and a slide-out keyboard. The InfoGear iPhone was billed as an “Internet appliance” that combined a telephone with web browsing, email, a speakerphone, and a digital answering machine.

The so-called Internet appliance was first dreamed up by three engineers at National Semiconductor who had created a crude but working prototype. A consultant, Robert Ackerman, stumbled upon their project during a tour of the engineering department and became enamored with it. He realized that what others were starting to predict for the future was right in front of him and began negotiations with National Semiconductor. As a result, InfoGear was born as a standalone entity.

One of the tenets of the early iPhone was simplicity. It had to be as easy to use as an ATM machine, so easy that anyone could understand and use it. In fact, its black and white touchscreen display featured large graphical icons representing email and the web, functioning much like the touchscreens found in ATMs of that era.

The InfoGear iPhone debuted at the 1998 Consumer Electronics Show, winning the Innovations ’98 award. That same year at Fall Internet World ’98, the iPhone won the Best of Show award for Outstanding Desktop Hardware Product.

Among the InfoGear iPhone’s innovations were:

• Transcribed voicemail — Messages appeared as text on the screen. A touchscreen button allowed you to tap to return the call.
• Integrated content — Content from People, Sports Illustrated, Money, and Time was available as were movie listings from Hollywood Online.
• Maps — A Maps application was included with maps data.
• Early cloud computing — Most of the processing was done on a remote server, long before “cloud computing” became mainstream.

The InfoGear iPhone wasn’t cheap. It cost $499 in 1998 plus required a $19.95 per month fee for Internet access.

The InfoGear iPhone was briefly branded the Cidco iPhone after a partnership between InfoGear and Cidco. In total, only about 100,000 InfoGear iPhone units were sold.

In 2000, Cisco Systems acquired InfoGear along with the iPhone trademark for $300 million in stock. Cisco rebranded a line of its Linksys VoIP phones with the iPhone name. By 2007, Apple had announced its iPhone to which Cisco responded with a lawsuit. A settlement was reached, with both companies allowed to use the iPhone name.

Today, the Apple iPhone is a huge international success. Where the InfoGear iPhone sold roughly 100,000 units during its entire existence, the Apple iPhone sold more than 46 million units in the fourth quarter of 2018 alone.

https://aitelephone.com

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Sources:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/263401/global-apple-iphone-sales-since-3rd-quarter-2007/

The Forgotten Story of the Original iPhone Released in 1998

https://www.cultofmac.com/519065/apple-history-iphone-new-name/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_iPhone

Creative Commons Terms : https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Download here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_iPhone#/media/File:White_iPhone_1.jpeg

Global Virtual Numbers can Help Elderly Loved Ones Stay Connected No Matter Where in the World You Are

The telephone is a comfortable, familiar tool that has been used for a lifetime. As adult children move away, it becomes a vital lifeline in keeping those relationships strong. However, the telephone often becomes more difficult for the elderly to manage as they age and cognitive function declines.

While they may be able to handle dialing a local phone number, international calls may be virtually impossible. Not only are they unfamiliar looking, they require the use of country codes and exit codes. In addition, concerns about the cost of making international long distance calls could be a tough mental barrier to overcome — even if the calls themselves are cheap or even toll-free. If you have an elderly loved one living in another country, using global virtual numbers could be the answer to these dilemmas.

For example, let’s say your mother lives in Firenze, Italy and you live in New York City. While you can call her easily enough, she wants the ability to do the same. However, to dial your phone number in New York, she must first dial Italy’s exit code (39) followed by USA’s country code (1) followed by the area code for your location in New York followed your seven-digit phone number. That’s 13 digits that she must dial correctly — and that’s before any calling card codes she might want to use to keep her costs as low as possible. Failing vision or cognitive decline makes something this extremely difficult.

With global virtual numbers, you could give your mother a local Firenze phone number to call. The familiar 055 regional code will immediately put her at ease as it’s a local phone number. There’s no need to use an international calling card or dial international country and exit codes. All she needs to do is make a local call, just as if you lived in the same neighborhood.

Global virtual numbers look and act local, but it actually forwards the call to your designated phone in New York City. For even greater peace of mind, you can change this designated number as needed so you’ll never miss a call from Mom when you’re away from home or on vacation. You could even set it up in such a way that various phones (such as your home phone, mobile phone, or office phone) ring in a sequence or a certain phone rings at a specific time of day.

Getting Italy global virtual numbers (or a virtual phone number for any other country in the world) is a great way to help your loved ones reach out to you without hassles or concerns. It’s also an affordable choice with low per minute rates and no contracts required.

Learn about virtual phone numbers here

How to Determine Who Does What During Global Conferencing

As the account holder of an international conferencing service, you may think that the entire task of hosting and moderating a global conference calls falls squarely on your shoulders. While you may be the host, you don’t necessarily have to do all of the work. In fact, it’s a good practice to assign different roles to different people. Below are the most common roles required and how to select the right person for each.

• Global Conferencing Leader or Moderator — The leader or moderator of the call is responsible for running the conference call. This involves everything from scheduling the call, developing the agenda, inviting participants, assigning roles, keeping the conversation on track, assigning action items and responsibilities, summarizing the meeting, and following up after the call. As the account holder, you’ll often be the leader by default. However, you may have colleagues who want to take the lead. We can set up company accounts where each person has their own global conferencing credentials to host and lead their own international conference calls.

• Time Keeper — One of the best practices of any meeting is to manage the amount of time spent on each agenda item. Consider tasking an individual to set a timer and nudge you when it’s time to move to the next agenda item. This allows you to perform your leadership duties without having to keep your eye on the clock the entire time. Since your time keeper will jump in when time is up, you won’t accidentally run over time. Who should you pick? Ideally, someone who is physically located in your same office. That way, you can sit side-by-side during the conference call and he or she can communicate the time limits non-verbally. If that’s not possible, ask a co-worker, your assistant, or another trusted person on your staff to take on this role. 

• Secretary or Recorder — Many meetings require a written record, and this is true of many international conference calls as well. Even if not required, it’s a great idea to have someone take detailed notes to document the audio conference. While everyone in attendance can certainly take their own notes, if you let them know that someone is taking a master set of notes that will be shared afterward, this frees your participants from having to take notes. They may be more engaged as a result. Who should you select as secretary? Ask one of your co-workers who is known for his or her organizational or note-taking skills. The secretary should be prepared to help prepare and distribute the agenda, record any decisions, action items, or conclusions, and distribute the notes afterward.

• Global Conferencing Interpreter — For international conference calls where two or more languages may be spoken, it might make sense to have an interpreter available. If someone in your office is bilingual, ask them to be available to translate or clarify phrases as needed during the audio conference. If not, consider using an over-the-phone interpreting service.

• Global Conference Call Participants — Everyone in your international conference call has a role. Those not assigned a specific role such as leader, time keeper or secretary automatically fall into the participant role. Participants should be prepared to contribute their ideas and insights to the meeting. Who should you invite as a participant? Think about the purpose of the call and its relevance to potential participants. If it’s relevant, then they’re probably a good candidate for participation. If not, the call could be perceived as a waste of their time. The more relevant the call’s purpose to your participants, the more likely they’ll be engaged, active participants.

Assigning these key roles to members of your team can help ensure a well organized international conference call.

Global Conferencing Service Details

Setting Ground Rules for Timing International Conferencing Activities

International Conferencing Activities and video conferencing are outstanding communications methods for global teams. They allow everyone, regardless of location, to meet virtually. If your team members are located in the same time zone, or in relatively close time zones, impromptu and scheduled conference calls are as easy as domestic ones. However, the further apart they are, the more complicated it gets. Few people are willing to set their alarm clocks for 3:00 am in order to attend a work-related conference call. With that in mind, it’s helpful to set some ground rules. Below are a few tips to get started.

Determine Your Business’s Master Working Hours

This is helpful in general for businesses with satellite offices around the world. All branches should be aware of your main office’s working hours. If your main office is in Los Angeles, California, consider making Pacific time your official “home office” time. This doesn’t mean all branch offices will need to match their working hours to your home office time, but they should be aware of it.

For example, if your Tokyo office wants to hold an ad hoc global conference call at the end of day on a Monday at 4:00pm local time, that would actually be 11:00pm on a Sunday night home office time. A better choice would be to schedule the global conference call for Tuesday at 8:00am Tokyo time which would be 3:00pm Monday in Los Angeles.

Determine the Best Times for Most Conference Calls

Spend some time examining a time zone map to determine a few optimal times for your global conference calls. Depending on how spread out your team is, you may have to make a few compromises. Let’s use Los Angeles, Tokyo, and London as an example. If you plan on holding a global conference call during your home office hours of 9:00am to 5:00pm Pacific time, it will be the middle of the night in Tokyo and evening to midnight in London.

Some participants will need to join the call outside of their own local office hours. The most optimal time in this example would be 1:00 or 2:00pm Pacific time. Participants in Tokyo would need to join at 6:00 or 7:00am local time while those in London would join at 9:00 or 10:00pm local time. Though not ideal for your participants, it’s preferable to an international conference call during their normal sleeping hours.

Thus, for all-hands-on conference calls, you might establish 1:00 pm home office time as the ideal time for this type of conference call. For global conference calls between the home office and Tokyo, you might determine that 4:00 pm home office time is best. For international conference calls between LA and London, 8:30am Pacific time might be the best compromise.

Whatever you determine to be the optimal times for each office, create a master chart and share it with your team.

Consider the Proportion of Attendees in Each Time Zone

Finally, not all calls will require everyone’s attendance. If you’re the only person in Los Angeles who will be on a given conference call and everyone else is overseas, it might make more sense to schedule the call during your participants’ office hours. This may mean you’ll have to host an international conference call late at night or early in the morning, but you’ll be the only one who’s inconvenienced.

Read on about International Conferencing Activities

Mobile Radio Early Wireless

Before the cell phone, many commercial businesses relied on (and many still do) specialized mobile radio, or SMR, to communicate with service workers out in the field. While public agencies such as law enforcement agencies had access to mobile radios starting in the late 1920s, commercial licenses weren’t available until the SMR service was established by the FCC in 1979. This opened the door to businesses operating fleets to communicate with their drivers in real time.

Specialized mobile radio systems typically include a base station transmitter and antenna for the dispatch office along with mobile radio units for the field technicians. The mobile radio units could be car- or truck-mounted or handheld. In the early days of SMR, vehicle-mounted units were common. Typical use cases for SMR included dispatching taxis and tow trucks.

Modern SMR systems offer both a traditional dispatch mode, which allows for walkie-talkie-like voice communications over the air between two or more units, and interconnected mode, which uses the public switched telephone network for a more mobile phone-like experience. In dispatch mode, the entire fleet can hear these communications while interconnected mode allows for private conversations.

Motorola was a pioneer in the two-way radio era and a mainstay in police cruisers for decades before SMR was introduced to commercial businesses. Motorola improved upon SMR technology and developed MIRS (Motorola Integrated Radio System), which later became the Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN), a mobile telecom technology that blended cell phone technology with trunked radio service in 1991. Motorola’s improvements increased the number of users on a single part of the bandwidth dramatical compared to the standard, analog version of SMR.

A company called Fleet Call (at the time) used Motorola’s iDEN network to power its mobile devices, which were marketed to service-based companies such as pest control, mobile auto repair, plumbing, HVAC, cable TV, and uniform companies. Fleet Call’s devices looked and acted much like typical cellular phones of the early 1990s, but with a unique “push to talk” feature that instantly converted the phone into a two-way radio. By 1993, Fleet Call had changed its name to Nextel.

The push-to-talk feature differentiated Nextel phones from the rest of the pack and was seen as a marketing advantage. However, Nextel resisted including this feature on its phones initially but the FCC insisted since the iDEN network was licensed to use bandwidth reserved for dispatch use.

Nextel phones had several advantages in that era: they could be used as pagers, cell phones, and two-way radios depending on the business’s needs at any given time. For example, a dispatcher could send a short text message or alert to call the office at the next opportunity, which was similar to the most advanced pagers of the time. A dispatcher could also call an individual for a private phone conversation or use the push-to-talk function to get a quick status update.

Nextel was later acquired by Sprint in 2005. Sprint abandoned Nextel’s iDEN network in favor of its own CDMA network. In 2013, Sprint decommissioned the iDEN network and integrated the spectrum in the Sprint LTE network.

aitelephone.com

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Sources:

https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/broadband-division/specialized-mobile-radio-service-smr

https://ethw.org/Milestones:One-Way_Police_Radio_Communication,_1928

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vb7vk4/roger-that-a-short-history-of-the-walkie-talkie

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDEN

http://www.company-histories.com/Motorola-Inc-Company-History.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nextel_Communications

Virtual Conference Room with Audio, Video Conferencing, Chatrooms, text chat, document-sharing, and more, all in one place.

The rise of smartphones, tablets, Skype, and FaceTime have fundamentally changed how we work and communicate with one another. Just a few years ago, having a physical conference room was an absolute necessity for most businesses. Today, you may be wondering how you might put that space to better use. After all, a good portion of employees works remotely.

Even when a business hosts a video or web conference to include remote team members, it’s not unusual for those huddled around the conference room table to log in on their laptops so they can take advantage of all the real-time collaboration features offered by desktop video conferencing in their virtual conference room.

Whether your office has a conference room or not, creating a virtual conference room with audio, video, and web conferencing capabilities could eliminate the need for a dedicated meeting space without having to compromise on human interactions. Here’s what you need to know.

• It’s no longer necessary to invest in extensive audio / video hardware — For example, our desktop virtual meeting solutions run in a standard web browser and utilize each participant’s onboard webcam and microphone.
• Virtual conferencing is easy to use and packed with helpful features — Hosting or participating in a video or web conference is easy with our service. If you can navigate a basic website, you can easily manage a video conference. Features such as screen sharing, collaborative notes, recordings, chats, personal share space, pass-the-presenter, and a companion mobile app enhance the virtual conferencing experience. In fact, you’ll probably miss these tools the next time you’re in a regular in-person meeting.
• Geographic boundaries are no longer obstacles to getting things done — Getting your entire team together in person has become increasingly impractical, especially when many work from home, in co-working spaces, in various branch offices, in the field, or in entirely different countries for that matter.  With a virtual conference room, location no longer factors into the equation. Everyone simply joins at the appointed time from wherever they happen to be. They can join using any type of device, too, including desktop computers, laptops, smartphones, or tablets.
• Different types of conferencing services are available — It’s not always necessary to meet with webcams on or with screen-sharing enabled. In many cases, an audio conference is a desirable choice. We offer audio, video, and web conferencing, allowing you to build the right conferencing solution for your needs. Even better, each of our services is offered without a contract, which means you can add or remove services as your needs change. For example, if you’re working on a short-term contract with overseas vendors, you may need our international conferencing plan for a few months. Once that contract is up and you no longer need to communicate internationally, you could stop using the service without penalty. Likewise, you may want to host a series of web conferences after a product launch. Once you’ve completed the series and have posted the recordings on your website, you may want to take a break with that service. Again, since there’s no contract, you can start and stop the service as needed.

We offer a variety of virtual conferencing tools including international audio conferencing, virtual meeting service, special event conference calls, global call forwarding virtual phone numbers, and more — all without a long-term commitment on your part, and all powered by modern, high-quality telecommunications networks.

View Virtual Conference Room Services here

Pager Use Over 100 Years

When was the last time you saw someone wearing a pager? Largely a relic of the past, a few professions still rely on pagers for alerts including surgeons, nuclear engineers, and emergency responders. While pagers had their heyday in the 1980s and 1990s, their use dates back much further into the 20^th century. Here’s a brief history of the pager.

Pager of the 1920s

Pagers trace their roots to one-way radio, which first came into existence in the 1920s with the Detroit Police Department leading the way. Kenneth Cox, Walter Vogler, and Bernard Fitzgerald, all Detroit patrolmen and all amateur radio buffs began tinkering with radio sets they installed in a Model T police car. Cox later partnered with Robert L. Batts, an engineering student, to build a one-way radio receiver and antenna. In 1928, their one-way radio was installed and the Detroit Police Department began dispatching patrol cars by radio. Other police departments followed suit.

Pagers of the 1940s and 1950s

In 1949, Al Gross, who also invented the walkie talkie, cordless telephone, and CB radio, patented the first telephone pager device. It wasn’t called a pager just yet. The device was pocket-sized and included circuitry that responded selectively to specific signals. Gross showed his device to healthcare professionals at a medical convention in Philadelphia in 1949 but was met with skepticism. Most featured that the device would either update patients or interfere with their golf games! In 1950, Gross’s telephone paging system was implemented in New York’s Jewish hospital.

In 1959, the term “pager” was finally coined when Motorola entered the market with a personal radio communications device. This device was about half the size of a deck of playing cards.

Pagers of the 1960s and 1970s

Motorola’s 1964 PageBoy 1 was the first successful consumer pager. It alerted users with a tone.

Pagers of this era came to be known as “beepers” as that’s exactly what they did. They beeped you with an audible tone. A series of different tones meant that different meanings could be attached to the tone type. For example, a short beep might mean, “incoming ambulance” whereas a long tone might mean “call the dispatch desk.” Pagers during this time also had a limited range, making them useful in hospitals and buildings.

Voice pagers arrived, improving the practical use of pagers, albeit still within an onsite network. With voice pagers, instead of just an alert telling the user to call in to the dispatch desk for details, the pager relayed audible instructions such as “you’re needed in room 2.” Numeric pagers soon followed and were preferred over voice because they were more discreet. At this time, the displays were small and limited. Either the phone number the receiver should call would be displayed or an internal code for a predetermined action.

Pagers of the 1980s and 1990s

By the 1980s, wide area paging had arrived. This allowed pages to be transmitted via radio waves across wide distances — across cities, states, and the country. The popularity of pagers rose as a result. Businesses of all types recognized the value of pagers and equipped their field technicians and employees with pagers. Even drug dealers got into the act.

Alphanumeric pagers soon arrived, allowing dispatchers or pager callers to enter a text message. Now, instead of using internal codes, it was possible to send typed instructions. At this point, paging was still a one-way affair. The end user could receive the message but had to find a phone and make a call to respond in any way. In the late 1990s, two-way pagers appeared, enabling users to respond back directly from their pagers. Motorola’s Tango two-way pager could even receive email. In 1996, Research in Motion (BlackBerry)’s Inter@active Pager arrived complete with a QWERTY keyboard and graphical display.

The Death of Pagers

By 2001, paging manufacturers began exiting. It had become clear that new technologies were making pagers all but obsolete.

Sources:

https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/everyday-tech/who-still-uses-pagers.htm

https://blog.commontime.com/100-year-pager-history

https://ethw.org/Milestones:One-Way_Police_Radio_Communication,_1928https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/al-gross

How to Use International Conferencing to Communicate with a Large Global Audience

International conferencing bridges distances, bringing a diverse group together in a group telephone call. Our global conference calling service uses advanced telecommunications networks for optimal sound quality. Our bridge enables individuals to access the conference using country-specific access numbers. With support for up to 250 participants, you can host large international conference calls with people from around the world. Below are a few tips to help ensure that your next global audio conference goes smoothly.

International Conferencing Benefits

International Conferencing Provides Global Access Numbers

When you activate your global conferencing account with us, we’ll send you a list of all global access numbers.

As you create your event and invite attendees, make sure to provide invitees with the list of local and toll-free options for their countries.

Your participants will appreciate being able to join your global call using a local phone number. Not only is it more convenient for them, having a local access dial-in number moves uncertainty surrounding the cost of the call, which should improve participation. Attendees join your call free of charge.

Encourage the use of our free Connect app — Imagine joining a global conference call with just a tap. Our Connect app lets you do just that, eliminating the need to enter access numbers and passcodes. It works worldwide from any web-enabled device including computers, smartphones, and tablets.

As the host of the call, you’ll have access to helpful moderator’s tools, but attendees can use the app as well to join your conference. They simply tap to join and will be automatically called by the system and joined into the conference call.

In addition to the added convenience and value, the app offers, when attendees use it to join a call, their participation is billed at our dial-out rate. This rate is much lower than most of the toll-free dial-in rates, which can reduce the overall cost of your global conference call.

Have a colleague help moderate the call — There’s a big difference between hosting global conference calls with a small group and one with up to 250 attendees.

Having a co-moderator allows the conference to continue while the co-moderator handles various administrative tasks such as time- and agenda-management, taking notes, keeping track of questions to answer at the end of the call, and so forth.

Your co-moderator could also monitor emails, phone calls, and other channels in case some participants reach out indicating that they need help joining the conference. If that’s the case, they could then use the dial-out function to join them into the conference in progress.

Make sure you and your co-moderator know how to use the various moderator features — A single unmuted phone line could wreak havoc over your global conference call. Knowing how to quickly find and shut it down is crucial in minimizing its potential for disruption. Ideally, your co-moderator will take care of this so that you can continue sharing your message.

We recommend having the online event viewer open during your global conference call. This tool will show you a list of all participants as well as the status of their lines. It’s very easy to identify and mute the line that is generating noise.

Use the “lecture” mode as appropriate — One of the best ways to minimize interruptions is by using the lecture mode during your presentation. Use * 5 to turn this mode on and off. When in lecture mode, the only line open is yours. Everyone else will be able to hear you, but their lines will be muted. Once you’re done presenting and want to open up the call to other speakers or for a questions and answers session, press * 5 to exit out of lecture mode.

Take advantage of our operator assistance if needed — If you need help at any point, our live operators are standing by to be of immediate assistance. Simply press * 0 to reach an operator during your global conference calls.

International Conferencing Service

Finally, consider our assisted International Conferencing with audio and video conferencing service. Our operators help before, during, and after your international conference calls, handling all kinds of behind-the-scenes tasks so that you can focus on your presentation. We can assist on calls with just a handful of attendees to the largest global conferences of all with thousands of attendees.

Contact us today to learn more.

How to Use Video Conferencing for Startups

Whether you’re bootstrapping a new business or have received a much-needed infusion of cash, running a startup requires a lot of networking with others. Video conferencing can play a role in this from collaborating with your partners to pitching your business plan to investors. Below are a few ideas on how to use video conferencing in your startup.

First, let’s look at some of the advantages of video conferencing.

• Save on Office Space — Housing employees is expensive, even if you just have a few of them. What if everyone worked remotely? You’d save a lot of money on office space each month. Hundreds of companies exist that have adopted the virtual business model including Automattic, AgileBits, Buffer, Sticker Mule, and InVision (which has 700 employees). 

• Get a Competitive Advantage — Video conferencing frees you from the bounds of geography. The best people to bring on board may not live in your city or be willing to relocate. By eliminating the office, you can hire from beyond your local talent pool. Plus, remote work is seen as a desirable perk, helping your business attract top-notch talent in a competitive hiring environment. With less overhead and better talent, your startup will have an advantage over your competitors.

So, what’s a typical day in the life of a virtual startup like?

• Morning chats — How about starting each day with a quick video chat covering the day ahead. Keep it short, say 5 to 10 minutes max, and make it a routine. This gives everyone a chance to check in, stay informed, and get some face time. It’s also a good way to breed familiarity amongst a distributed team.
• Regular staff meetings — You could hold both regularly scheduled staff meetings in a video conference as well as ad hoc meetings as needed. Your regular staff meetings will be longer than your morning chats and will go into greater depth as well.
• Small group collaboration — Video conferencing enables you to connect in a face-to-face environment for real-time collaboration. Screen-sharing, file-sharing, and other features allow for a more immersive experience, much as if your team huddled around the same computer. Video conferencing is great for training, demonstrations, sharing, and brainstorming.
• Interviews — Speaking of hiring talent from a global talent pool, what better way to conduct an interview than with a video conference? As a candidate rises to the top, consider having his or her future colleagues join the conference to introduce themselves. This is a good way to introduce new hires to your remote culture.
• Touching base — In a regular office, you might stop and chat with your team members, casually getting to know them and finding out what ideas they might have or struggles they may be facing. You’ll need a virtual way to do something similar. Consider holding one-on-one video conferences with your team members periodically so you can get to know them and pick their brains. Just like your casual chats, these should be short and informal.
• Pitches — It’s not always practical to meet in person, and you have the next best thing in the form of a video conferencing plan. It’s part of your competitive advantage, so why not use a video conference as part of your pitch to investors? They’ll be able to experience part of what makes your business tick while also enjoying the fact that they don’t have to travel to a meeting.
• Investor relations — As your relationship with investors grows, you’ll want to stay in touch. Video conferencing is an excellent communications tool. Whether you need mentoring and advice or have an issue that needs their attention, setting up a quick video conference can bring everyone together no matter where in the world they may physically be.

Video conferencing is quickly becoming a must-have business communication and collaboration tool. It’s affordable and available on a contract-free basis.

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Conduct International Conference Calls Between USA and Southeast Asia

Business partnerships between companies located in the United States and international partners and suppliers in Southeast Asia have become commonplace. Communications methods including phone calls, international conduct international conference call, email, Skype, and text messaging make it possible to collaborate with one another despite the huge geographical distance between regions. Hold International conference calls between USA and Southeast Asia are an affordable, convenient choice for any company doing business with companies in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Brunei, or Timor-Leste (East Timor).

Here’s what you need to know.

Conduct international conference calls between USA and most of the countries in Southeast Asia is straightforward with our global audio conferencing plans. We have toll free access numbers specific to 7 of the 11 countries in Southeast Asia, making it extremely convenient for your international participants in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Brunei to join your global calls. Since these toll free access numbers work just like any other toll free number in those countries, participants do not need to dial their country’s exit code or make a potentially costly long distance phone call in order to join your audio conference. We also have some city specific access numbers in Southeast Asia, for example, Singapore City, as well as dial-out access. Our international toll free, regional, and dial-out conferencing rates are extremely competitive.

It’s a little trickier for participants in Laos, Myanmar, and East Timor as those countries are not currently supported with toll free access. The reasons for this vary, but not all countries have the infrastructure in place for toll free access to global conference calls. For example, East Timor was part of the Indonesian numbering plan up until 1999 when violence and Indonesia’s departure from the territory destroyed most of the telecommunications infrastructure. International access remains limited in East Timor.

However, they can still participate in your global conference calls. The two best ways to facilitate international conference calls between USA and Laos, Myanmar, or East Timor are:

• Dial-out — With our dial-out feature, the call Leader can dial participants directly and then join them into the international conference call. It’s a simple process, and our dial-out rates tend to be our lowest. If you only need to connect a few participants, dial-out is a practical choice. If you have a long list of participants requiring dial-out, you could either enter their numbers in advance and let the system automatically dial-out to them at the appointed time or request our live operators to assist you with this. Learn more about the dial-out feature here.
• The free Connect app — Our free connect app allows participants to join your USA to Southeast Asia conference call without having to dial an access number. It’s a convenient choice for any conferencing participant, even those who could otherwise access your call using a toll free access number. You’ll be billed for participants using the app at our low dial-out rates.

Hold international conference calls with your business associates in Southeast Asia is an affordable, flexible choice. We have extremely low rates and no minimum usage requirements. There are no contracts, no monthly fees, and you can cancel at any time.

Sign up today. Choose from two plans that have wide global toll-free coverage for your meeting attendees.

Legacy Plan – 119 global access numbers

Expanded Plan – 150 global access numbers

Origins of Telecom: The Chemical Telegraph

When you think of telecommunications, it’s really quite magical, isn’t it? Sending and receiving messages from around the globe in real-time (or close to it) is nothing short of amazing. But it’s not magic. Telecommunications is built on the imaginations of inventors who tinkered with wires, devices, and even chemicals in order to make their magic work.

One of these inventors was Samuel Thomas von Sömmering who, in 1809, improved on an earlier design by Francisco Salva Campillo for transmitting letters over a telegraph. Their designs used a series of wires to represent letters of the alphabet and numbers. Sömmering placed the wires on the receiving end into tubes of acid.

When an electric current was sent, the receiving wires electrolyzed the acid in the tubes in sequence. This released hydrogens bubbles next to the corresponding letter or number. An operator on the receiving end would observe the bubbles and then record the transmission. This technology was known as an electrochemical telegraph rather than the electromagnetic telegraph which opens and closes a circuit to establish a magnetic field, which then causes a mechanical movement.

Another one of these inventors was Alexander Bain, who invented the first technology believed to transfer images over a wire. His chemical telegraph, which you could consider an early fax machine, was patented in 1843 — still long before the telephone. It was an offshoot of the telegraph, intended to draw letters on one end and then re-draw them on the receiving end. Bain, a professor, philosopher, and amateur clockmaker, accomplished this by synchronizing two pendulums with a stylus to a clock. The motion scanned a flat metal plate containing letters of the alphabet line by line and then projected outlines of the letters onto a cylinder. The image quality was poor, but it certainly was proof of concept.

Bain faced what an article in Scientific America claimed was “unjust opposition” to his patent application by a rival caveat, Professor Morse’s chemical telegraph, which “…is not worth a single straw, and which cannot operate as a telegraph at all, that is as it is represented in his drawings, we humbly believe that the Chemical Telegraph of Prof. Morse was set up merely to blockade the path of another rival Telegraph.” Bain appealed the patent rejection and was ultimately awarded the patent. Bain eventually went bankrupt, and Scientific America observed a notable change in the inventor’s appearance “From being so much harassed and persecuted.”

The “image telegraph” soon followed, invented by Frederick Bakewell as an improvement to Bain’s chemical telegraph. Bakewell’s version replaced the pendulums with rotating cylinders and a metal stylus that travel across the cylinder as it rotated. The receiving end featured a similar setup, but with a chemical paper that was marked with the stylus as the cylinder rotated. He presented his invention at the 1851 World’s Fair in London. Not only could his device transmit text, it could also transmit simple lines. His version was not a commercial success, but the possibilities had certainly become apparent.

These early chemical telegraphs set the stage for future devices that would later include the modern fax machine.

Telecommunications Services Including International Conference Calls and
Global Call Forwarding Since 1996

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Sources:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bain-the-inventor-of-the-chemical-t/
https://mysite.du.edu/~jcalvert/tel/morse/morse.htm
http://www.connected-earth.com/Journeys/Livingwithtelecommunications/Livinginthetelegraphage/Fax/index.htm
https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-the-fax-machine-1991379
https://www.afax.com/frederick-bakewell/
https://faxauthority.com/fax-history/

How to Improve the Sound Quality of Your Audio Video Conference Call

Audio video conference call is a fact of modern business life, but sound quality remains elusive — and frustrating — for many conference calling users. Fortunately, there are measures you can take to improve audio. Below are a few tips to get you started.

Choose Your Service Provider Wisely

Test the services you are considering, paying close attention to audio quality. Starting with a high-quality service provider will help ensure that pops, low volume levels, echoes, and other distracting line noises don’t interfere with your audio or call-in video conference.

International Conference Call service with Superb Sound Quality

Set Up Your Environment and Minimize Distractions for your Audio Video Conference Call

Choose an appropriate environment, ideally a private, quiet area where you won’t be overheard and where the other participants won’t have to hear distracting background noises. Turn off phone ringers, audible alerts, and other potential noise makers such as fans, fountains, radios, and appliances. If you’ll be participating from home, instruct family members to stay out of the room. Pets are another concern when calling from home.

Use Mute

Use the mute function when not speaking. When dialing in using a telephone, the keypad command is *6. When using computer audio, click the microphone button to turn your audio on and off. All participants should be familiar with muting and unmuting their lines. If you’re hosting the conference call, you also have the ability to mute the lines of other participants.

Get a Microphone

Use a good quality cardioid microphone or headset. Cardioid microphones pick up audio from directly in front of the microphone rather than in a 360 degree field. Thus, when you speak into the microphone, your voice will be picked up but noise from behind the microphone (such as a computer fan running) won’t be picked up. If you used an omnidirectional mic, it would pick up everything. You could also use a standard headset typically used for phone calls.

Wear headphones

Not only do headphones help you to better hear other call participants, they’ll reduce the likelihood of audio feedback (make sure to turn off your computer’s speakers). Feedback occurs when a microphone picks up its output such as when you have the speakers turned up too high. Bypassing your speakers and wearing a headset will eliminate that problem.

Test Audio Video Conference Call Gear

It’s smart to join audio and video conferences a few minutes early to make sure that you have plenty of time to test your microphone, speakers/headset, and webcam.

Ready to improve audio on your next conference call? Start by testing one of our affordable audio, video, and web conferencing services today.

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How to Improve Web Conferencing Engagement

Ease of use and more comfortable end-users don’t necessarily mean that everyone is engaged during web conferences. Some people still dread them. Maybe they’re camera shy, or perhaps they simply prefer meeting in person. Some may be bored or unsure of what their role should be. Whatever the case, if you want your web conferences to be productive, increasing your participants’ engagement levels should help. Below are a few tips to consider to Improve Web Conferencing engagement.    

Technology and user adoption rates have converged, making web conferencing an increasingly popular communications tool. It’s become so easy, that obstacles that used to make web conferencing impractical no longer exist. Users are accustomed to clicking a link to launch a web conference in browser and signing in. Since most computers, tablets, and smartphones are already equipped with microphones, webcams, and speakers, there’s no need to purchase or set up equipment.

Be Selective

Your entire team doesn’t necessarily have to attend every single web conference you host. While it may seem to make sense to gather everyone into a longer session, it could be an engagement killer. Consider holding smaller web conferences with select individuals.

Run a Tight Ship

One reason people dread meetings is because they tend to drag on without a clear agenda. Creating an agenda and allotting a certain amount of each time per item is a good start. While you’re at it, assign a few key roles: timekeeper, chat moderator, and official note taker.

Send Personal Invites to Improve Web Conferencing

While most web conferencing software will automatically invite attendees, providing them with the pertinent scheduling and access information, sending a personal invitation gives you the opportunity to engage with participants before the conference.

For example, you might write, “Hey John, I’d like you to present the new product demo tomorrow during our weekly web conference. I put you down for 7 minutes. That should be enough time to show the video and share the story behind it. Let me know if you need additional time or have anything else you’d like to share.”

See what we just did? We set expectations. John now knows exactly what’s expected of him, so he can prepare accordingly. He’ll know to have the product demo video ready to go when it’s his turn to present. Not only can this help John better understand his role and eliminate any uncertainty he may have, we’re helping him to become more invested in the web conference. We asked for his input. He’s no longer an idle participant. This is true of the people you’ve asked to be the timekeeper and note taker, too.

Since John will be ready to present, there will be less time wasted waiting for him to locate and load the video. This improves meeting efficiency which will help with everyone else’s engagement.

Have a Little Fun

As your web conference gets underway, warm everyone up with a fun activity. For example, you could ask everyone to take and share a picture of their current view. This is fun when your team is located in different states or countries. Don’t spend too much time on this — just a quick warm up. Schedule this at the top of the agenda and then quickly jump into the heart of the web conference.

Draw Out the Introverts to Improve Web Conferencing

Web conferences are great for introverts, but they may still have trouble getting a word in if others tend to dominate the conversation. Periodically call on individuals, asking for their input. Encourage participants to use the chat box to jot down their ideas and questions throughout the presentation. Ask your chat moderator to keep track of these questions and ideas (culling out any duplicates or comments that have been resolved) so you can address them  during the Q&A.

Keep Your Web Conferences Short

Shorter, more focused meetings tend to be more effective than long, drawn out ones, so keep your web conferences short, too.

Send a Follow-up and Share Your Notes and Web Conference Recordings with Participants

Finally, after the meeting, promptly send a follow-up, wrapping up what was discussed and what needs to be done. Including your notes and the recording is helpful.

Improve web conferencing engagement starts with a reliable, easy-to-use desktop web conferencing solution.

Try a free 30-trial of Video Pro video conferencing today and put these tips to good use!

How to Minimize International Conference Call Distractions

A few years ago, researchers from Research Now surveyed business conference call users about their experiences. They found an average of about 13 minutes of every conference call was wasted on interruptions and distractions. If your typical conference call runs about a half hour in length, losing 13 minutes to distractions puts a serious damper on the productivity of your global audio conferences. Fortunately, you can take matters into your own hands to minimize distractions and keep your calls productive.

Let’s look at the most common international conference call distractions so that you can recognize and avoid them:

• Getting started — Small talk, finding out who’s on the call, waiting a few extra minutes to ensure everyone else has had a chance to join the call, sending text messages to attendees who haven’t joined the call, is one of the biggest distractions. If your global conference call starts at 9:00am, many attendees will have joined a few minutes early. Waiting until 9:05 or 9:10 to start could mean up to 15 minutes of time wasted. Multiply that times the number of attendees you have on the line and you’re looking at a serious loss of productivity.
• Late joiners — Late joiners are disruptive, too. They may announce themselves and apologize for their tardiness — or even expect a quick synopsis of what they’ve missed. 
• Background noise — It’s a common conference call courtesy to mute microphones when not speaking, but this doesn’t always happen. Whether someone doesn’t know any better or merely forgot to mute their line, background noise can be very distracting. For example, if a participant is typing notes on a keyboard, the sounds of typing could easily be heard by all. Likewise, landscapers with lawnmowers and leaf blowers outside one of your attendee’s office could drown out the speaker’s voice.
• Fumbling with screen sharing — For video conferences, screen sharing is a useful tool. However, if the other person is unprepared for the handoff, it could be a time-consuming task to get up and running.

You’ll always need to get the global conference call started, have late joiners and attendees who fail to mute themselves, and you may need to share each other’s screens from time to time in a video conference. So, how do you manage all of the above? Here are a few ideas:

• Set expectations and start on time — Let your attendees know your global conference call will start promptly at the scheduled time, and suggest that they dial in a few minutes early to give them time to enter their passcodes and get settled. Depending on the nature of your conference call, you may even want to lock your conference once it gets underway. If so, let them know the call will be locked promptly, which is another incentive for attendees to be on time.
• Use operator assistance to track down late attendees — Locking your conference calls will eliminate the international conference call distractions of late joiners, but you may still want them to be able to attend your conference call, even if they must join late. Our operators can help and join dial key attendees who may have forgotten or had issues joining your call. Designate one of your colleagues to coordinate this or make arrangements before the conference call to have an operator track down any absentee participants. Meanwhile, start the conference call while without them. The operator will take care of the pleasantries and join these latecomers into your conference call in progress.
• Use the live event viewer to mute any noisy or unmuted lines — Our live conference viewer provides you with a graphical list of attendees and the status of their microphones. When you hear background noise, a quick look will show you exactly which attendee is responsible. From there, a simple click of a button will mute that caller’s line to avoid those audio international conference call distractions.
• Give the other presenter(s) a heads-up about screen sharing — If you know ahead of time who you might want to share their screens, it’s helpful to let them know you’ll be calling on them to share their screen at some point in the video conference. This gives them time to prepare a short presentation and have it open and ready on their computers. It also affords them the opportunity to close any other open applications that could be distracting when their screen goes live. If they’ve never used screen sharing, offer to do a quick practice run beforehand so they feel comfortable with how it works.

Whether you’re hosting a small audio conference with your distributed team or a huge global conference call with dozens of attendees, minimizing distractions will lead to a more productive call.

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