Free Conference Call Services (Latest News Update)

If you are one of the 250 million users that use FreeConferenceCall.com or another one of those free conference call services, you may feel like you struck gold. Bill Gates himself couldn’t have found a better deal. Making your own conference call with the ability to host up to 100 people for 6 hours… perfect. Right?

How Voice Over IP (VoIP) Works?

Before understanding how these free conference calls work, it is important to understand what VoIP is. Voice over IP, is the latest technology behind calling, using the Internet to access each other, rather than the older phone lines hanging on the poles. Old calls used to route through switchboards until they ended up at the right handset. But VOIP changed all of these, using the Internet backbone as its new line of transit.

So, What Happened with These Free Conference Call Services?

You need a little telephone history to understand the bigger picture. As telephone lines reached the far ends of the rural US, phone companies in these areas had huge costs installing lines and maintaining them for those customers. In 1996 Uncle Sam stepped in and allowed these small rural phone companies to charge a fee for line and service maintenance for those areas. So the more calls that reached those lines, the more money they made.

So the big companies like AT&T and Verizon pay fees to access these areas. When you need to call a conference line service in Iowa, AT&T pays these small companies by the minute to complete the call. The purpose of this fee was to provide phone service to these out-of-town areas, but now is being taken advantage of the equation:

The more calls that get routed through them = More Money

So the rural phone companies decided to get into business with conference call companies, phone sex services, and other high call frequency services. They would pay these companies a nominal 4 cents a minute, then make 8 cents from companies like AT&T. As this grew, it became more expensive for the big corporations. These big corporations began getting tired of these exorbitant fees, so they are now blocking calls from companies like this which means no more calls to the free conference line.

What Does This Mean for Me?

This means that every time you give use free conference call services you are playing Russian roulette with that new prospect you are trying to sell. Your chances of getting a “number unobtainable” message increase as time goes on depending on your service carrier. If crossing your fingers before every call is not your thing, you may need to look into a different service.

Not only that but because the calls go through the internet, there are increased security risks. There are countless examples of hackers hacking a VoIP system, and running scripts to automatically call numbers 24/7. If this happens to your company, you will be in for a shocking phone bill next month.

What Should You Do?

Great, now you know that you are one hack away from paying a $100,000 phone bill and one “number unobtainable” away from losing that next big client. Now, what? It all comes down to your VoIP service provider. It is now more important than ever to work with a moral company that follows all the industry best practices and truly has your best interest in mind.

You need a company that is forthright about how they do business, the partners they work with, and how they handle your VoIP service. Talk to your servicer, and make sure they are doing all they need to do to keep your systems up and running. Network/server hardening, port scans, firewall protection, and the like are all necessary steps to keeping your company safe. This also applies to your free conference call service if you so chose to go that route. Read reviews, make sure it has all the features you need, and know what you are getting into. When it comes to additional features or call quality, these services are underwhelming. Make sure that the savings are worth what you are giving up.

Swift Systems is one such company that truly cares about your company and has your best interest at heart. Every effort is taken to protect you, so you know that you and your company won’t be taken advantage of. Give us a call today! We can talk you through how we can be your true technology partner.

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