Users of FreeConference.Com, a Web-based service that offers long-distance conference calling for the price of a single long-distance call, found itself cut off last week, as AT&T/Cingular, Sprint, and Qwest began blocking subscriber access to the service.
Consumer advocates were quick to denounce the companies’ action. PennPIRG’s Beth McConnell called it “a corporation’s financial interests limiting consumer choice and access to legitimate, publicly available services.”
FreeConference.Com enables a caller to set up a conference call for the price of a single long-distance call to Iowa or Minnesota, and then receive a call-in access number that up to 25 other callers can use for a conference.
The company’s service has been popular with not-profits and small businesses that have employees in multiple states, but AT&T was incensed at what it saw as violation of its terms of service. AT&T spokesperson Mark Siegel said that AT&T’s wireless service is for calls “between one person and another person, not between one person and many.”
But FreeConference.Com CEO Alex Cory said AT&T was simply trying to push conference callers back to its own 800-number calling service and thereby reap more profit.
“Who dominates 800-service? That would be AT&T,” Cory said on the gigaom.com blog. “If free conferencing were eliminated, what would people do? Go back to 800-service conferencing.”
Some blog readers commented that they could still utilize the service, and both sides confirmed that as AT&T found and blocked numbers using FreeConference, the latter created new numbers for subscribers, thus getting around AT&T’s efforts to block them.
“This is an unpleasant bump in the road for us, but does not threaten our service. We are offering alternative numbers to affected customers and business is continuing as usual,” Cory said.
Termination Fees
The root of the dispute is the termination fees large telecom companies pay to small rural carriers to foot development of telecom service in low-population areas. Services such as FreeConference.com can set up agreements to drive services to the smaller carriers and bring them more money, while the major telecoms pay the bill. AT&T claims such moves are fraudulent and has sued a similar service, FuturePhone, in an attempt to recoup its losses.
Qwest, the local phone company in much of the West, also filed suit against FreeConference.com and FuturePhone, claiming that “untoward” and “inappropriate” traffic brought by the services and others like it cost it upwards of $10 to $15 million.
Given that AT&T and Verizon both sought relief from paying into the Universal Service Fund — specifically designated to pay for development of telecom services to rural areas — and then promptly tried to institute “regulatory cost” charges that went directly to telecom coffers, observers of the latest dust-up were not convinced that AT&T’s motives were altrustic.
A writer for the TechDirt blog said that, “The problem isn’t with these services, but the bad regulations that allowed the small telcos to charge crazy termination fees in the first place. If the big telcos have a problem with it, they should take it up with whoever put those laws in place.”
Net Neutrality, Privacy, And Telco Control
The FreeConference.com issue also demonstrates to some the need for telephone regulations that, like “net neutrality” principles on the Web, prevent telephone carriers from discriminating against services they dislike. If telecoms like AT&T can shut off access to phone services any time it likes, they reason, what’s to stop it from doing the same to Internet services?
AT&T had agreed to maintain a principle of net neutrality for its basic Internet services as a condition of the megamerger with BellSouth, but observers noted the agreement might not apply to its Internet-over-TV offerings such as Uverse, which AT&T is banking on to deliver it millions in new revenue.
Telecom-friendly FCC chair Kevin Martin had also intimated that he would not push for enforcement of the net neutrality concession, a move that put him on the hot seat during a recent Congressional hearing into FCC activity. Democrats accused Martin, a Republican, of showing excessive favoritism — as opposed to run-of-the-mill favoritism — to business interests over consumers and not aggressively investigating issues such as the NSA’s accessing domestic phone records of millions of Americans with AT&T’s help.
AT&T was a prime mover in the NSA’s plans, and has aggressively fought a multitude of lawsuits and inquiries into the level of its involvement with the NSA program, with both AT&T and the government claiming that the requests for information could cause harm to national security. In San Francisco, Judge Vaughn Walker recently ruled that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) could proceed in its case against AT&T, though he ruled that documents related to the case would have to stay sealed for the time being.
Critics charged the FreeConference.Com dispute, the NSA spy case, and the ongoing net neutrality issue all demonstrate the clear imbalance of power telecom incumbents enjoy — the ability to shut off services at will and block inquiries into unscrupulous practices. When there are so few players — now largely unregulated — in the telecom market, it’s not so easy to simply take your business elsewhere, they noted.
“That Cingular (AT&T), Qwest, and Sprint have decided that they can use access to networks as leverage in a business dispute is scary,” wrote Aaron Barlow for ePluribus Media. “[N]ot because we are helpless and unable to find alternatives, but because their mindset could be applied to other networks, completely undermining the confidence we have developed in the system of networks that underlies not only this nation but the world.”
Friday, April 27, 2007
Conference Calling Card.
An overseas calling card is basically a credit card used exclusively for telephone communications. By utilizing them, callers are able to make phone calls away from their homes or offices without needing change for payphones or having to use sometimes, expensive cellular phones. With trade and commerce becoming so competitive online, getting the best international calling card at cheap prices online is very likely.
An overseas calling card can be paid for either through monthly bills or by the use of prepaid cards which deduct the cost of calls made from a standing (and usually rechargeable) balance.
Why Do You Need An Overseas Calling Card?
When you travel abroad, the odds are in your favor that you will have a safe and incident-free trip. However, crime and violence, as well as unexpected difficulties, do happen to people in all parts of the world.
Lonely and lost, a tourist in a new place has only to reach for their overseas calling card to instantly be connected to the person of their choice. Moreover Travelers and visitors going to other countries need to stay in touch, for their own personal reasons and sometimes for safety or emergency situations. Using the best international calling cards is a sensible decision to make, and should be an accessory that every traveler should have.
Benefits of An Overseas Calling Card:
These cards offer several benefits, such as,
- Firstly these cards are one of the cheapest and most efficient ways to keep in touch with your loved ones back home.
- All cards work from cell phones, at no extra charge.
- You can use any cell phone to use your calling card.
- You get the same rate all the time, and no time restrictions.
- Works from anywhere to anywhere in the world
- Easy to use
- 24/7 customer support
- Multiple currencies accepted
- Bank transfer accepted
- Pay via phone or internet and you can manage your account online,
An overseas calling card can be an invaluable tool when traveling, especially in remote areas that do not have access to the Internet or a wi-fi station to make Internet phone calls.
Can An Overseas Calling Card Be Purchased Online?
Simply...Yes. A calling card can easily be purchased online. This is one way to avoid loss of your phone card as well as fraudulent activity in purchasing prepaid calling cards. If you do a bit of web research, you can find various kinds of calling cards. The advantage of purchasing online is you can make comparisons with various other cards, so that you can easily decide which international calling cards you need to buy with more facilities and cheaper calling rates and other related charges.
How Much Can You Save With An Overseas Calling Card
The following steps will help you save money in purchasing your calling card.
- Shop around and compare prices for plans, dial-arounds, pre-paid calling cards, and callbacks.
- An overseas calling card is available from as low as $0.04/min and above. Carefully read the terms and conditions for each of these services. Avoid paying "basic rates" whenever possible.
- Know and understand your calling patterns. This will help you and your long distance carrier select the type of service that meets your needs at an affordable price.
- If you don’t understand your plan or the charges on your phone bill, ask the long distance carrier. If you need a customer service representative who speaks your language, ask for one.
- Periodically review your plan and check the Web sites of others those carriers information on international calling options. You may be able to get a cheaper plan.
- Not sure of the phone number you want to call? Dialing international directory assistance can be costly. Instead, check the Internet for international telephone directories. If you do not have access to a computer, one is usually available for public use at your local library.
AT&T Conference Calling.
PennPIRG has learned that AT&T/Cingular recently began blocking phone numbers on its wireless service used by consumers to access free conference call services, such as those provided by Free Conference Call.com. The telephone giant has argued that calls to free conference call services are resulting in millions of dollars in losses to the company due to re-routing and termination fees, and has sued free conference call services and local phone companies in Iowa over the fees.
“AT&T/Cingular should not hold consumers hostage in their billing dispute with free conference call services. The company is penalizing their customers for using their phones to access a legal service,” said Beth McConnell, PennPIRG Director. “If getting out of a cell phone contract were easy, AT&T/Cingular would never dare take this anti-consumer step.” McConnell also noted that Cingular offers competing conference call services for its cellular customers.
AT&T/Cingular is informing customers who complain that the company made the decision “because of billing issues,” “charges associated with calling certain numbers,” and because Free Conference Call.com numbers are “circumventing their billing practices.”
After receiving a tip from a consumer in Illinois who was blocked from accessing a conference call on his cellular phone, PennPIRG confirmed the practice with several customer service representatives at Cingular/AT&T, as well as with customer service at Free Conference Call.com. PennPIRG also confirmed the blocks by calling several phone numbers used by Free Conference Call.com on a Cingular cellular phone.
According to PennPIRG’s research, AT&T/Cingular had not yet blocked all phone numbers as of Tuesday, March 13th. Customer service representatives informed consumers that AT&T/Cingular was blocking new numbers as they learned of them. As far as PennPIRG has been able to learn, the number-blocking practice began sometime around March 9th, 2007. The consumer group is unaware of any other cellular phone carriers engaging in a similar practice, or if the numbers are also blocked on AT&T’s land line service.
McConnell noted that AT&T’s anti-consumer action in this context has broad implications. “This is an example of what is at stake in the fight for Internet freedom — a corporation’s financial interests limiting consumer choice and access to legitimate, publicly available services. AT&T, of course, is one of the companies opposed to Internet freedom,” said McConnell.
PennPIRG called on AT&T/Cingular to restore service to legitimate business phone numbers, and called on regulators at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to determine if AT&T/Cingular has violated any laws in blocking phone numbers.
“AT&T/Cingular should not hold consumers hostage in their billing dispute with free conference call services. The company is penalizing their customers for using their phones to access a legal service,” said Beth McConnell, PennPIRG Director. “If getting out of a cell phone contract were easy, AT&T/Cingular would never dare take this anti-consumer step.” McConnell also noted that Cingular offers competing conference call services for its cellular customers.
AT&T/Cingular is informing customers who complain that the company made the decision “because of billing issues,” “charges associated with calling certain numbers,” and because Free Conference Call.com numbers are “circumventing their billing practices.”
After receiving a tip from a consumer in Illinois who was blocked from accessing a conference call on his cellular phone, PennPIRG confirmed the practice with several customer service representatives at Cingular/AT&T, as well as with customer service at Free Conference Call.com. PennPIRG also confirmed the blocks by calling several phone numbers used by Free Conference Call.com on a Cingular cellular phone.
According to PennPIRG’s research, AT&T/Cingular had not yet blocked all phone numbers as of Tuesday, March 13th. Customer service representatives informed consumers that AT&T/Cingular was blocking new numbers as they learned of them. As far as PennPIRG has been able to learn, the number-blocking practice began sometime around March 9th, 2007. The consumer group is unaware of any other cellular phone carriers engaging in a similar practice, or if the numbers are also blocked on AT&T’s land line service.
McConnell noted that AT&T’s anti-consumer action in this context has broad implications. “This is an example of what is at stake in the fight for Internet freedom — a corporation’s financial interests limiting consumer choice and access to legitimate, publicly available services. AT&T, of course, is one of the companies opposed to Internet freedom,” said McConnell.
PennPIRG called on AT&T/Cingular to restore service to legitimate business phone numbers, and called on regulators at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to determine if AT&T/Cingular has violated any laws in blocking phone numbers.
Conference Calling Services.
Sometimes it isn't always possible to attend meetings and business presentations all the time, not to mention keep in touch with prospective clients on a regular basis. Well, what is a person to do then? One of the best options available has to be conference calling, but how do you know which video conference call service to choose. Well, that can be tough, but with proper research and some common sense, it shouldn't be that big of a problem.
There are many different options to consider when hosting a conference call, and each should be examined before settling down with a specific type of service. There are three basic types of conference call services. There’s the operator-assisted conference, instant conferencing, and then there’s the teleconferences with the use of the internet. The one you choose will depend on the service you wish to provide to your callers, as well as how much money you wish to spend.
The operator assisted conference calls are usually a bit more expensive and are more formal than an instant conference. They also have many more features as well, such as recording and/or muting people participating in the conference call. The instant conference is just the basic essentials that allow the host to be in control, but only to a certain extent, which makes operator assisted conference calls much more desirable. Teleconferences are becoming quite popular as well, but all participants must have similar networking capabilities, which some consider to be a small downside, but the benefits of these web based conferences outweigh that minor "downside".
During your conference call you will have a multitude of options to choose from. You can have a roll call, which means that each new person who calls in to participate will be announced and have a chance to introduce themselves to the rest of the group. You may also have a moderated question and answer session at the end of the conference call. If you wish to record the entire conference you can ask the operator, if it’s an operator assisted call that is, and they will record it for you. You may then use the recording as you wish, on your website to inform others or in any other manner you wish.
The price of your video conference call will vary from company to company, like any other product. The different services that you choose to have will decide the price of the conference call. How many people participate and how long the conference lasts will also be a large factor, so keep that in mind also. Carefully researching and looking over each company's prices can potentially save you quite a bit of money. If you’re careful and you take your time, you should be able to choose the right conference call services for you with little or no frustration.
Conference Calling.
Business conference calling has become a very competitive business these days. You see the commercials on TV everyday with everyone jockeying for your business. This article will look at business conference calling to see what all the hype is about.
Communicate Any Where at Any Time
Business has changed radically over the past ten years or so. It used to be that you were only doing business with people you could afford to travel too and often that meant very big expense just to touch bases with a long distance call. However, all that has changed and now you can connect with people all over the world.
The Internet Has Change the Face of Communication
A few years ago the world changed with the berth of the internet. Now it is possible to send a message to someone in Tokyo, Australia or any where else in the world in a matter of minutes, and then get a response back from them just as quickly with email messages.
Business Conference Calling Is In Demand
Although email is a great communication tool it still is not as good as using your voice to communicate certain messages. Since we are able to expand our businesses all over the world it has become even more important to communicate with business conference calling.
Business conference calling services are getting very competitive for your business. You can find rates as low as 3.9 cents per minute, and you may also find better rates if you do high volume calls.
One way to save with business conference calling would be to use a fixed rate service. The rates will be cheaper in the long run, but only if you are making several calls per month.
It pays to chop around for the right business conference calling service for your needs. You will find that the rates are very competitive. Make sure that you are getting the services that you need, but do not fall for all the bells and whistles if they simply do not apply to your business communication needs.
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