5 Alternatives to freeconferencecall.com and Why You Should Use Them Instead. White paper Prepared by Chris Dawson For Ziff Davis 30 August 2012

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2 White Paper 5 Alternatives to freeconferencecall.com and Why You Should Use Them Instead Table of Contents Abstract...3 Free conference calls? What s not to like?...4 How it works...5 You re still paying (at least indirectly)...5 And that s not the only issue...5 The Alternatives...6 Google+ Hangouts...6 Skype...6 Speek...7 BigBlueButton...7 OpenMeetings...7 Conclusion...8 References...8 Page 2 of 8

What s not to like?...4 How it works...5 You re still paying (at least indirectly).

3 Abstract Freeconferencecall.com has received a great deal of attention lately as companies look for ways to connect distributed teams and global partners while still controlling costs at every turn. It has even won international awards for its business model. And yet, as they say, there is no such thing as a free lunch. This paper explores the pitfalls of the freemium service and details five alternatives that businesses should consider before putting jumping on the freeconferencecall.com bandwagon. Page 3 of 8

while still controlling costs at every turn. It has even won international awards for its business model.

4 Free conference calls? What s not to like? Freeconferencecall.com has both free and paid services for domestic and international conference calling. The conference call as a business tool remains the fastest, easiest way to get stakeholders, business partners, and teams, many of whom are scattered about the US or around the world, communicating with each other. While countless Web 2.0 platforms exist for business communication and collaboration, conference calls still support everything from regularly scheduled team meetings to ad hoc decision-making sessions. Traditional conference bridge services, though, which provide permanent access to phonebased conference rooms, are rarely as inexpensive as they should be given the plethora of Web-based alternatives, and are often remarkably complicated in terms of the reservation systems that businesses need to use to schedule calls. These same services often charge more for less complicated, always-on reservationless systems. Enter Freeconferencecall.com, whose original business model provided completely free, reservationless conferences. While the system does work, and works fairly well, one has to ask how a business can make money by giving away its products and services completely for free. Even now, the freemium model that allows users to buy substantial upgrades in capacity and capabilities is still quite inexpensive. This price list, taken from the freeconferencecall.com website shows just how low pricing for the services actually is:. Of course, when something seems too good to be true, it probably is. While the service actually works as advertised and call quality is acceptable for most uses, there is a catch. This catch is largely transparent to users, but should be enough to make businesses think twice about choosing Freeconferencecall.com as their conferencing platform. Freeconferencecall.com Page 4 of 8

5 How It Works Freeconferencecall.com and other similar providers (just Google free conference calls; there are plenty) are able to turn a profit (freeconferencecall.com reported $23 million in revenue in 2010) by using an FCC loophole that allows rural telecommunications providers to charge so-called termination fees to larger providers. Thus, if a call connects from Verizon or AT&T to a small provider in the Midwest, that small provider can charge significant per-minute fees to the major telcos. Services like Freeconferencecall.com route all of their calls through these rural telecommunications companies (Freeconferencecall.com uses a telco in Iowa for example) and then split the proceeds from the termination fees with the small telephone companies. You re still paying (at least indirectly) The problem with this approach is that the large telcos end up paying hundreds of millions of dollars a year in termination fees, the volume of which only goes up as more people use services like Freeconferencecall.com. And who pays those fees? The consumers do, of course. These costs are passed on to you in higher rates on your land line and cellular bills. AT&T and Verizon do not simply absorb them through the goodness of their corporate hearts. By subscribing to services like this, you and your company are contributing to skyrocketing telecommunications costs that slow the spread of vital services, broadband penetration, and 4G expansions, as well as raising costs directly for consumers. And that s not the only issue Even ignoring the financial issues, two major problems still remain, both of which are far more important to your business. First, VoIP providers like Vonage and Google Voice won t even connect to these numbers. They aren t required to do so by the FCC like the big telcos and so they don t to keep their own costs down. If you provide a free conference calling dial-in number to someone who uses Google Voice, for example, they won t be able to connect. Secondly, the FCC is currently working to close this loophole and end termination fees, with the support and lobbying of the major telecommunications companies. Most analysts believe that the days of free conference calls funded in this way are coming to an end. This means that if your business subscribes to one of these services, there s a good chance you ll be looking for a new provider sooner than later. Page 5 of 8

Thus, if a call connects from Verizon or AT&T to a small provider in the Midwest, that small provider can charge significant per-minute fees to the major telcos. Services like Freeconferencecall.

6 The Alternatives Fear not, however. There are a number of great alternatives that are still free and leverage modern web technologies to provide high-quality audio conferencing and, in many cases, video to meet your communication needs. This list is by no means exhaustive, but is a solid starting point as you look for the right conferencing solution for your business. Google+ Hangouts Google+ Hangouts are arguably the best feature of Google s fledgling social network. They offer outstanding video and audio quality for up to nine participants, can be launched ad hoc, and are now fully integrated with Google Apps. However, they are accessible by anyone, even if they or their business don t subscribe to Apps. Hangouts can be audio only if users need to conserve bandwidth, don t have a webcam, or just leave their webcam off and a low-bandwidth setting only transmits video for the current speaker. Skype Skype has long been used for web-based video and audio communications. The free version of the service is quite limited in terms of numbers of participants, but Skype Premium and Skype for Business solutions are extremely cost-effective. Skype for Business also allows centralized management and provisioning of accounts. Skype has the advantage of active noise/echo cancelation and works on every mobile device and virtually every desktop platform and accounts can even be associated with a phone number (for a fee), allowing audio calls to Skype lines from any phone. Page 6 of 8

This list is by no means exhaustive, but is a solid starting point as you look for the right conferencing solution for your business.

7 Speek Speek takes a different approach to conference calling, allowing users to set up accounts with the online service to create a Speek profile/link (e.g., This link can be shared with any number of people who follow the link, enter their phone number, and immediately receive a call from the service that enters them into an always-on conference room. Calling into the room using VoIP in the web interface is currently in beta, but the service is under active and rapid development, so users will be able to access a conference call from virtually any Web-connected device. BigBlueButton Designed for use as a virtual classroom in higher education settings, BigBlueButton works equally well as an HTML5-based video and audio conferencing platform. Users share a link to an online meeting, and an unlimited number of participants can sign on, sharing video, audio, and, perhaps more interestingly, a virtual whiteboard and PowerPoint decks. The software is open source and is meant to be installed on a web server. Paid hosting and support are available, but savvy businesses can easily run the software on their own servers. OpenMeetings OpenMeetings, like BigBlueButton, is an open source web conferencing platform that can be installed on virtually any web server and provides audio and video streaming, desktop sharing, collaborative document editing, a shared whiteboard, and more. Although less mature than BigBlueButton, it is a highly effective piece of free software that businesses can use to meet, Page 7 of 8

Calling into the room using VoIP in the web interface is currently in beta, but the service is under active and rapid development, so users will be able to access a conference call from virtually any

8 connect, and collaborate with the only cost being hosting and bandwidth. OpenMeetings is supported by the Apache Foundation and was originally a Google project. Conclusion Google+ Hangouts are arguably the best feature of Google s fledgling social network. They offer outstanding video and audio quality for up to nine participants, can be launched ad hoc, and are now fully integrated with Google Apps. However, they are accessible by anyone, even if they or their business don t subscribe to Apps. Hangouts can be audio only if users need to conserve bandwidth, don t have a webcam, or just leave their webcam off and a low-bandwidth setting only transmits video for the current speaker. References calling+services+will+end Page 8 of 8

They offer outstanding video and audio quality for up to nine participants, can be launched ad hoc, and are now fully integrated with Google Apps.

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