* When people leave or are disconnected from a call, reconnect seems to always have some pain. That's very handy and it also lets you immediately identify who is broadcasting background noise and needs to mute. * Skype and some others offer a video display which shows who is speaking at any given moment. Most of these notes also apply to video calling which of course includes audio. There's a lot more Skype and others could do in this department, but a headset is a real winner, and they are cheap. While Skype has very good echo cancellation for those who wish to use it in speakerphone mode, I still strongly recommend the use of headsets by those calling in remotely, and even the judicious use of muting. It comes with a downside in that tools like Skype often pick up ambient noise in the room (mostly with remote callers) including clacking of keyboards, random background noises and bleeps and bloops of software using the speakers of the computer. The additional audio quality offers a closer sense of being in the room, and better hearing in both directions. For this Skype is an excellent and free solution. The next step up is a higher quality audio call. They usually have trouble hearing some of the people in the meeting room, though fancier systems with remote microphones help a bit with that. It's harder for them to engage in random banter, and the call fidelity is usually low and never better than PSTN phone quality. The remote people are never really part of the meeting. The common answer, namely a speakerphone on the meeting room table and a conference bridge system, is pretty unsatisfactory, though the technology is stable enough that it is easy to get going. Yesterday we used Oovoo, one of the few multi-part conference systems to support PC and Mac, with some good but many bad results. I have not been looking in the high-priced end but I believe the more modestly priced tools should be able to focus on this and make it work. In spite of this being a fairly common situation, I have had trouble finding conferencing systems that do this particular task very well. In a situation I find fairly common, the setup was a meeting room with many people, and then a small number of people calling in remotely. Yesterday we had a meeting using some videoconferencing.
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