* A hitch with free conferencing services
In a recent column, we mentioned the possibility of using POTS (plain old telephone service) as a substitute for more sophisticated multimedia presentations. And even though Kubernan is chomping at the proverbial bit to publish its first video podcast when the time is right, for now we are experimenting with getting the job done through a more traditional method.
In particular, the briefing from Kubernan’s 2007 Mobile WiMAX State-of-the-Market report has an option of playing back the audio by simply dialing a phone number and entering an access code.
But there’s a small hitch. There’s at least a possibility that if you call from a cell phone, your call may be blocked. The reason is a growing dispute between the conference call service that Kubernan used and wireless service providers. And both sides are currently making their case to the FCC as to why they are “right” in offering (or blocking) these services.
Here’s the key to the dispute as we understand it. The services like freeconferencecall.com have a two-pronged approach to their business model. On the surface, they hope that people will like their services, and then they will also sign up for fee-based service – like toll-free dial-in.
But another part of the economic balance is that the numbers are located in locations where the terminating local phone company can get a premium price per minute for terminating the calls. (This is based on the historical amount of traffic to a rural area, in particular.) Consequently, the long distance providers end up paying significant amounts to the local service providers because of the traffic driven to these sites. As of this writing, it’s not 100% clear whether the conferencing providers receive a portion of these revenues.
Next time we’ll give our take on the issue.
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From Cisco Subnet: Enter to win Routing TCP/IP Vols I and IIJeff’s blog at Cisco Subnet.
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