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VOIP web conferencing is the use of Voice Over Internet Protocol based systems, using helper applications through the computer’s web browser, to provide business meetings and briefings where the participants are not necessarily anywhere near each other.
The advantages should be obvious. When there is a need for a training program, a briefing on an upcoming project or some other purpose that would normally require many participants to gather together from around the nation or even the world, the relevant personnel can sit at their own desks at a designated time and take part in the meeting without incurring travel expenses or spending wasted time in transit.
With increasing use of wireless technology, it is even possible to use wireless voip to allow work from a laptop wherever is handy, to the point of working in a hotel room while doing unavoidable travel.
There are many providers who offer web conferencing solutions.
Even restricting the choices to those providing VOIP web conferencing, due to the advantages of allowing the meeting to outgrow telephone based conferencing limits, the choices vary from large providers like Macromedia to small providers like Voxwire.
Voxwire concentrates on providing high quality voice transmissions using only a small amount of bandwidth. This allows even dial-up users to have good audio quality.
Voxwire offers follow the leader web browsing, so the conference attendees will view the same web pages as the conference leader, moderator controls and a text chat program to allow participation from those without microphones or cross-talk between participants without disturbing the whole conference.
Voxwire uses a flat fee system, with two participants costing about $10/month and additional participants added for $5 each, as well as a group rate with $30/month for 10 people. There is a set up fee of $15 for groups, but additional sets of 10 can be added for another $15 per month for each set.
Macromedia provides the Breeze 5 voip web conferencing service. This relies on Macromedia’s flash program, found on almost all web browsers.
This allows anyone who can use Microsoft Powerpoint to produce presentations that can be presented over Breeze 5. Breeze 5 is intended for the training market, those who need either simultaneous or self paced training programs delivered to their computer.
This does not mean the service doesn’t also provide support for traditional meetings and other web conferencing solutions. Presenters can include tests and receive results from those tests. Even page views can be tracked.
Presentations can be saved for later use, and Breeze 5 can handle user registration, notification, reminders and tracking for large conferences so the presenter can tell who has been present for what parts of the total presentation.
AT&T Labs is another provider; with an enhanced VOIP feature allowing automated transcription. AT&T claims this is 85% accurate right out of the box, but the program will learn to understand the speaker and accuracy will improve.
AT&T expects to roll out their voip web conferencing solutions this fall, showing the continued growth of this field.
Related article: How To Choose The Right Web Conferencing Solution?
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