If you've ever made a three-way phone call, you've already teleconferenced. When we talk about teleconferencing, we're referring to conference calls, where small to very large groups of people can participate in, or at least listen to, the same phone conversation. There are two general types of conference calls. MeetMe conferencing requires participants to call a special phone number on a given day and time and enter an access code to join the teleconference. Ad-hoc conferencing requires a moderator to call each of the attendees individually and connect them together. Conference calls require something called a conference bridge, a special server that can receive and route up to thousands of calls at the same time. Larger companies might own their own conference bridge, but it's also possible to subscribe to an outside company to host your conference calls on their bridge. The conference bridge then links to a private branch exchange (PBX) within the company. A PBX is a miniature switch that routes calls to all the different internal phone extensions in the company. This is especially important for in-house conference calls.  Teleconferencing means meeting through a telecommunications medium. It is a generic term for linking people between two or more locations by electronics. There are at least six types of teleconferencing: audio, audiographic, computer, video, business television (BTV), and distance education. The methods used differ in the technology, but common factors contribute to the shared definition of teleconferencing:
A teleconference is a telephone meeting among two or more participants involving technology more sophisticated than a simple two-way phone connection. At its simplest, a teleconference can be an audio conference with one or both ends of the conference sharing a speaker phone. With considerably more equipment and special arrangements, a teleconference can be a conference, called a videoconference, in which the participants can see still or motion video images of each other. Because of the high bandwidth of video and the opportunity for larger and multiple display screens, a videoconference requires special telecommunication arrangements and a special room at each end. What is it? http://money.howstuffworks.com/business-communications/teleconferencing.htm In the past few years, corporations have gotten bigger and more spread out. Many American employees -- more than 44 million in 2004 -- also do at least some of their work from home [ref]. Since offices and employees can be thousands of miles apart, getting everyone into the same room for meetings and training has become decidedly impractical for a lot of companies. That's why teleconferencing -- the real-time exchange of information between people who are not in the same physical space -- has become such a big industry. The American audio conferencing industry alone reported $2.25 billion in revenue in 2004 [ref]. Through teleconferencing, companies can conduct meetings, customer briefs, training, demonstrations and workshops by phone or online instead of in person. How does it work? If you've ever made a three-way phone call, you've already teleconferenced. When we talk about teleconferencing, we're referring to conference calls, where small to very large groups of people can participate in, or at least listen to, the same phone conversation. There are two general types of conference calls. MeetMe conferencing requires participants to call a special phone number on a given day and time and enter an access code to join the teleconference. Ad-hoc conferencing requires a moderator to call each of the attendees individually and connect them together. |
|
|