finding that conference call systems are either free (bare-bones and super limited) or ++$150/year for every feature on the planet.
I want audio conference calls with more than 5 participants and longer than 40 minutes.
Screen sharing is very slick as well, so long as the sharer is using Chrome. The only thing I find missing is the ability to share mouse/keyboard control, but in typical conference settings that's usually not a frequently used feature.
One interesting edge case I ran into with uberconference was that I was trying to setup a sales call with someone behind an onerous corporate firewall that blocked all P2P traffic, and their connection to uberconference. The only solutions that were known to work on their network were Zoom and Webex.
I am in the process of setting up FusionPBX somewhere else at the moment, which I am hosting on a ~$7 a month VPS (lunanode.com). This will support all phone functions for this organisation, and also offer conference calling. PSTN trunking through voip.ms. Monthly cost is slightly more than $12 (including charges for ~5 DIDs and minutes).
> and what website do you use to quickly find a good breakdown of services for a given problem?
I make heavy use of AlternativeTo.net.
Our other solution, which we still use with customers and other external parties, is GoToMeeting (Citrix). It's about $180/year, I think. The app, despite being native, looks like something from 1995, and there's very little mobile app functionality to speak of, and also screen sharing is broadcast only, and it has some minor idiosyncrasies (for example, new people who join are muted initially, and the app's UI makes it ridiculously difficult to figure out how to unmute (hint: it's not the microphone icon next to your name)), but it does have several advantages:
* Audio and video is just rock solid. Unlike Google Hangouts, Slack and other web-based solutions, GoToMeeting just works. I can count the number of times we've had people struggle with audio/video on one hand. I don't know what the others are doing wrong (WebRTC?).
* You can dial in with a normal phone. This is useful when you have people who don't have/want the app, or if your Internet connection is slow or flaky.
* You can join a call very quickly even if you don't have the app. The invitation contains a link to an app download that, when opened, immediately joins the right call.
* You can record calls (including screen sharing).
The calls themselves are fine, but the applications are garbage. I'd advise against the platform.
Haven't tried MS Teams yet.
I remember having all kinds of issues, but it was a year ago.
At worst, it would be possible using our Skype meetings and phoning any external orgs in using the dial-in phone line. Not exactly elegant, but functional. (Hopefully that's not what they do, though...)
Being able to set up a con call from the Outlook mobile app is an awesome feature too. Quality has been fine.
We are in AU by the way.
* Use your existing Polycom/Cisco VC Gear (even h323!) * Get a dial in number or toll free # * Use the web without a plugin! (WebRTC) * Mac/Windows/Linux/iOS/Android...
Try a free trial.. It blows WebEx/Zoom/Fuze/GoToMeeting/Skype out of the water with quality...
For personal, Twilio or Plivo numbers :)
Maybe somebody has more experience with it?
There's a link to the linux client download under "Sources"
I haven't used the Linux client, but many others at my company use it.
And on top of all of that, Hangouts does not work at all on the new version of Firefox.
* Doesn't work on Firefox (for a better part of a year now for me, which appears to be an intentional won't fix)
* Frequently causes Chrome to hang or crash
* Pretty noticeable resource hog when it does work
* Audio/video quality is absolutely garbage, frequently breaks up or stutters, and has poor frame rate and high latency
* Seems to do a poor job isolating voice from sound (a handful of people will pretty much cause nonstop background noise, it tries to be clever by muting you when it detects mostly background sound, but it just results in people talking without realizing they're muted)
* Pretty feature poor compared to competitors (master presenter, remote control, shared whiteboard, phone dial-in, phone dial-out)
* Tied pretty heavily to a Google account, which is incredibly annoying in a professional environment where people are hesitant to join with their personal account, plus some extra confusion when it auto-joins with the account signed into Chrome which is further aggravated by the poor multi-account management story that might still use your personal account when you have a business account.
Source: used to be a consultant and used every possible conferencing software under the sun; currently using hangouts enterprise for work