In today’s competitive global business environments where productivity has dictated round-the-clock anywhere, any time activities, companies are looking for new and innovative technologies to bridge the gaps between people, place, and time. Two most recent developments—e-mail and voice mail—have certainly become indispensable business tools and, in the last decade have become the dominant, most ubiquitous method of communication. Still, there is a major drawback in their utility in that they are both asynchronous technologies; that is, they don’t support simultaneous communication.
Enter audio conferencing, which can link a number of people together at the same time simply by telephone. This method of conducting meetings allows a greater interactivity, immediacy, and a more natural collaborative experience between owners, managers, departments, and customers. And its use is rapidly becoming more popular and necessary. Catalysts for this growth can be attributed to the need for corporations to reduce capital and operating expenses, and preclude lost productivity due to business travel. However, many organizations that initially embraced conferencing solutions for such short-term, tactical reasons soon realized that conferencing delivered significant, long-term, strategic business values far beyond initial expectations, making it adaptable to many different applications and uses.
Today, the very face of audio conferencing is changing. Most services charge a fee for supplying the technology that bridges the phone calls together. Reservations must be made to request the number of lines that will be needed and staked out within a specific time frame. Freenet has simplified this process and made the conference virtually cost free for basic services. Now it is possible to set the reservations yourself, receive the secure PIN numbers, and notify all participants through the asynchronous tools of e-mail and the Internet. Up to one hundred participants for up to three hours per meeting! Such innovations are bringing a “second generation” of efficiency and ease to audio conferencing to corporations around the world.
Freenet is the new productivity tool that further enhances business communication and allows for even more effective meetings for businesspersons who are separated by time and geography.
