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In an effort to decrease travel costs, impact on the environment, my company has increased the amount of teleconferences/web conferences we are doing.

As such we need to update our equipment so were not just using a speaker phone or our crappy cheap teleconference equipment in some meeting rooms (spider phone).

I’ve made a recommendation to our office manager that we need to update our equipment. Subsequently, the admin in charge of looking into the upgrade came back with quotes of $20 K to $60 K per meeting room. That sounds like a lot.

I’m looking for other options for voice teleconference equipment. Do you have to spend $20 K to get good stuff?

neildbutler's picture

Just to be clear….

We often have a number of people in one meeting room (at my office) and either 1) a number of people in another meeting room (in another office) or 2) one or more people calling in separately from a cell or land lines.

Any ideas would be much appreciated.

Neil

bflynn's picture

For equipment, have everyone at their desks. Regular phones should work. If your meeting will be on the phone, why have some people in a room. Why not everyone on the phone? It will also save you some very expensive telephone equipment.

As far as technologies, the only one that I have recent experience with is WebEx. I am very happy with the technology.

Check the recent cast on teleconferences. It is very applicable to your situation.

Brian

ashdenver's picture

I can't speak to price but I can say that we generally use a mix of Microsoft LiveMeeting (virtual white board / application sharing for demos / power point on-screen) and a conference call. As far as I know, these things are pay-as-you go or useage-dependant. I don't know what the actual costs are but considering how much we use them, I can't imagine they're terribly outrageous.

The plus side is that no additional equipment is needed (assuming participants have a computer, internet and a phone already). The down side is that many people (like me) will use the meeting time to multi-task & not really pay attention or participate because there's no video or not enough interactivity built into the meeting or presentation.

neildbutler's picture

Yes, I've started using WebEx and I'm happy with the results. It’s great for visual aids and audio when everyone is at their computer. However, here's our problem:

When we have face to face meetings, we often have to get some people to call in to the meeting using teleconference equipment (which right now, is very poor). Unfortunately the people calling in can't hear everything that is discussed within the meeting room. Thus making them calling in, pretty much a waste of time.

More specifically- Does anyone know of some good equipment (i.e., speakers and microphones that don't cause an eco) that is fairly cost effective? We obviously don't mind spending some $, but I'll get laughed out of the room if I say it’s going to cost $20K to have better conference calls.

Neil

lalam's picture

I agree with having everyone call from their desks if you have some people in conference rooms and some calling from their desks. If the meeting is face to face for some attendees, and remote for others, the dynamics of the meeting may go against the remote attendees. People tend to get carried away talking face to face and forget that there is someone on the phone . If everyone is on the phone, the playing field is (more) level. This is different if you only have people in larger groups in separate conference rooms.

bflynn's picture

[quote="neildbutler"]\When we have face to face meetings, we often have to get some people to call in to the meeting using teleconference equipment (which right now, is very poor). Unfortunately the people calling in can't hear everything that is discussed within the meeting room. Thus making them calling in, pretty much a waste of time.
[/quote]

This isn't a problem of technology. It is a problem that some people are face to face and some aren't. You should not hold meetings this way. If some people will be on the phone, everyone should be.

No amount of technology will pull the remote people into the meeting. You have to purposefully handicap those who can meet face to face to equalize it.

Brian

neildbutler's picture

I agree with your points however the point remains the same. Sometimes I have to have a face to face meeting, with some people on the phone. It's obviously not ideal, but a reality of having my team all over the province. I still need an upgrade in equipment.

ccleveland's picture

Neil,

I run and participate in conference calls from a conference room many times a week. Generally, we use Polycomm phones attached through an adapter to our digital phone network. They work very well. Some of our conference rooms have much more elaborate (and probably much more expensive) built-in systems with button mics in the ceiling; however, the quality isn't that much better...plus gives me the feeling I'm talking to omniscient, omnipresent beings from on high.

I don't know the actual costs of these systems, but I can say they work very well in both of the scenarios you mentioned. Often, quality issues and echoes are more of a problem at the other end. Also carrier/conference manager you use could have an impact as well. We use AT&T TeleConference Services; I've only rarely had glitches with them and reconnecting has always fixed any problems.

CC