Conferencing

“Web conferencing” has taken the telecommunications world by storm and is available across a wide variety of platforms from mobile devices and tablets through to your desktop computer or laptop. The advantages of this are perhaps too numerous to list, the main ones being:
 

You’re not tied a geographic location. You can now be anywhere with an internet connection to participate in a video conferencing call, regardless of whether it’s audio or video

You have more ways to interact during the call. Whereas before you were quite limited with a webcam or microphone attached to your computer, conferencing over a mobile device will allow you to walk and talk, or perhaps show someone on the other end of a video call something of significance without too much trouble.

You can connect in no time at all. Most conferencing apps on mobile phones or software packages on desktops can connect to another call with seamless ease. Traditionally you’d have to co-ordinate call times and each dial a certain code to get into the call at the right time.

 
The most common type of web conferencing today is video conferencing. Technology today will allow you to connect with up to sixteen other individuals on any given call, and through the software you’ll be able to share documents and other attachments. Video conferencing will also help you build up a sense of trust between you and the person you’re speaking to. You’ll be able to read facial expressions, see how they react to ideas and just generally get your point across in a clearer and more concise manner. With this you might be able to speed up business deals, develop relationships quicker, improve connectivity within your business as well as the client facing side.
Of course, web conferencing hasn’t taken over entirely. You’d still be pressed to find an office desk without a landline connected for taking calls and most conference rooms in offices will still have traditional landline conferencing devices. Landlines are also an extremely useful way for people that perhaps live in rural areas to connect and join in with business meetings. Perhaps an executive is on a rural holiday or an employee decides to work from home but lives in an area where there’s no mobile coverage or internet. This is perhaps the only downside of web conferencing, and one of the key reasons why landlines will always be there for us to fall back on. Even when we’re streaming calls in high-definition on the next generation of technology, landlines will have a place.