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5 Alternatives to freeconferencecall.comand Why You Should Use Them InsteadWhite paperPrepared by Chris DawsonFor Ziff Davis30 August 2012Ziff Davis Research All Rights Reserved 2012

White Paper 5 Alternatives to freeconferencecall.comand Why You Should Use Them InsteadTable of ContentsAbstract. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Free conference calls? What’s not to like?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4How it works. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5You’re still paying (at least indirectly). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5And that’s not the only issue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5The Alternatives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Google Hangouts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Skype. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Speek. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7BigBlueButton. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7OpenMeetings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Alternatives to freeconferencecall.com and Why You Should Use Them InsteadPage 2 of 8

Ziff Davis White Paper Selling Smarter with CRMAbstractFreeconferencecall.com has received a great deal of attention lately as companies look forways to connect distributed teams and global partners while still controlling costs at everyturn. It has even won international awards for its business model. And yet, as they say, thereis no such thing as a free lunch. This paper explores the pitfalls of the freemium serviceand details five alternatives that businesses should consider before putting jumping on thefreeconferencecall.com bandwagon.5 Alternatives to freeconferencecall.com and Why You Should Use Them InsteadPage 3 of 8

Ziff Davis White Paper Selling Smarter with CRMFree conference calls? What’s not to like?Freeconferencecall.com has both free and paid services for domestic and internationalconference calling. The conference call as a business tool remains the fastest, easiest way toget stakeholders, business partners, and teams, many of whom are scattered about the USor around the world, communicating with each other. While countless Web 2.0 platforms existfor business communication and collaboration, conference calls still support everything fromregularly 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 ofWeb-based alternatives, and are often remarkably complicated in terms of the reservationsystems that businesses need to use to schedule calls. These same services often chargemore 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 toask how a business can make money by giving away its products and services completely forfree. Even now, the freemium model that allows users to buy substantial upgrades in capacityand capabilities is still quite inexpensive. This price list, taken from the freeconferencecall.comwebsite shows just how low pricing for the services actually is:.Of course, when somethingseems too good to be true, itprobably is. While the serviceactually works as advertised andcall quality is acceptable for mostuses, there is a catch. This catchis largely transparent to users,but should be enough to makebusinesses think twice aboutchoosing Freeconferencecall.comas their conferencing platform.Freeconferencecall.com5 Alternatives to freeconferencecall.com and Why You Should Use Them InsteadPage 4 of 8

Ziff Davis White Paper Selling Smarter with CRMHow It WorksFreeconferencecall.com and other similar providers (just Google free conference calls; thereare plenty) are able to turn a profit (freeconferencecall.com reported 23 million in revenuein 2010) by using an FCC loophole that allows rural telecommunications providers to chargeso-called “termination fees” to larger providers. Thus, if a call connects from Verizon or AT&T toa small provider in the Midwest, that small provider can charge significant per-minute fees tothe major telcos. Services like Freeconferencecall.com route all of their calls through these ruraltelecommunications companies (Freeconferencecall.com uses a telco in Iowa for example) andthen 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 millionsof dollars a year in termination fees, the volume of which only goes up as more people useservices 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 andVerizon 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 skyrocketingtelecommunications costs that slow the spread of vital services, broadband penetration, and 4Gexpansions, as well as raising costs directly for consumers.And that’s not the only issueEven ignoring the financial issues, two major problems still remain, both of which are far moreimportant to your business. First, VoIP providers like Vonage and Google Voice won’t evenconnect to these numbers. They aren’t required to do so by the FCC like the big telcos and sothey don’t to keep their own costs down. If you provide a free conference calling dial-in numberto 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 thesupport and lobbying of the major telecommunications companies. Most analysts believe thatthe days of free conference calls funded in this way are coming to an end. This means that ifyour business subscribes to one of these services, there’s a good chance you’ll be looking for anew provider sooner than later.5 Alternatives to freeconferencecall.com and Why You Should Use Them InsteadPage 5 of 8

Ziff Davis White Paper Selling Smarter with CRMThe AlternativesFear not, however. There are a number of great alternatives that are still free and leveragemodern web technologies to provide high-quality audio conferencing and, in many cases, videoto meet your communication needs. This list is by no means exhaustive, but is a solid startingpoint as you look for the right conferencing solution for your business.Google HangoutsGoogle Hangouts are arguably the best feature of Google’s fledgling social network. Theyoffer 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, evenif they or their business don’t subscribe to Apps. Hangouts can be audio only if users need toconserve bandwidth, don’t have a webcam, or just leave their webcam off and a low-bandwidthsetting only transmits video for the current speaker.SkypeSkype has long been used for web-based video and audio communications. The free version ofthe service is quite limited in terms of numbers of participants, but Skype Premium and Skypefor Business solutions are extremely cost-effective. Skype for Business also allows centralizedmanagement and provisioning of accounts.Skype has the advantage of active noise/echo cancelation and works on every mobile deviceand 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.5 Alternatives to freeconferencecall.com and Why You Should Use Them InsteadPage 6 of 8

Ziff Davis White Paper Selling Smarter with CRMSpeekSpeek takes a different approach to conference calling, allowing users to set up accountswith the online service to create a Speek profile/link (e.g., http://speek.com/acme). This linkcan be shared with any number of people who follow the link, enter their phone number, andimmediately receive a call from the service that enters them into an always-on conferenceroom. Calling into the room using VoIP in the web interface is currently in beta, but the serviceis under active and rapid development, so users will be able to access a conference call fromvirtually any Web-connected device.BigBlueButtonDesigned for use as a virtual classroom in higher education settings, BigBlueButton worksequally well as an HTML5-based video and audio conferencing platform. Users share a link toan 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 softwareis open source and is meant to be installed on a web server. Paid hosting and support areavailable, but savvy businesses can easily run the software on their own servers.OpenMeetingsOpenMeetings, like BigBlueButton, is an open source web conferencing platform that can beinstalled on virtually any web server and provides audio and video streaming, desktop sharing,collaborative document editing, a shared whiteboard, and more. Although less mature thanBigBlueButton, it is a highly effective piece of free software that businesses can use to meet,5 Alternatives to freeconferencecall.com and Why You Should Use Them InsteadPage 7 of 8