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8.3. Conference CallsWant to talk to more than one person at a time? You can do so with little extra trouble. Vonage and the other phone-centric providers all offer three-way conferencing, which allows you to call one person and then call another and link them into the conversation. Of course, many of the traditional telephone providers allowed the same thing. Four steps get your Vonage three-way calling session started:
If you think this looks amazingly like a clever way to utilize an advanced Call Waiting feature, I have to agree with you. No matter the technology behind this, it can be handy. This works only for calls within the United States and Canada, however, because of how other phone systems handle the Flash button signals. Skype allows up to five total conference call users (the conference initiator plus four invitees). Only one of the conference members can be a SkypeOut connection. You can use the Tools menu to start a conference call with all involved, or add people to an ongoing call. One person must be the conference host and invite the others. Because each call adds to the bandwidth requirements for the host, pick the host based on their equipment. A host with a fast computer and high bandwidth connection make a five-way conference call much more pleasurable. Figure 8-4 shows the screen that appears after choosing Tool Create Conference in your Skype application. Figure 8-4. Adding a third person to the listContacts appear in the left window, and participants appear in the right window. Highlight one or more contacts, then click the Add button (the cursor points there) to move them into the participants list. Once you have your participants selected, click the Start button. When each contact answers, all contact icons appear in your Skype application. The names scroll sideways if they're too long, which is why KarlsKonsultancy doesn't show up completely in Figure 8-5. Skype shows call duration below the host's icon. Notice there are SkypeOut and regular Skype contacts mixed in this conference call, a nice feature. Sometimes adding the SkypeOut call introduces a bit of echo, but if it's distracting, hang up on that participant and call them again while the others wait. Figure 8-5. Skype conference call in progressFamilies love this feature. Call Mom on Mother's Day and have three other siblings on the call, all for free if you're all on Skype. Saving money on the call will be important because I'm sure your Mom's present cost plenty. |
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