Back a few years ago, you'd need a 3 day course to learn about conference call setup. Today, it's easy. Most of these services are automated where you don't need to even hold on the line for 10 minutes. It can often be done via the internet.

Originally the conference call was limited to businesses paying exorbitant fees to the telcos. For business, it still made sense economically because the costs were less than the travel costs involved in bringing the people together. Additionally, significant time savings are involved, both in terms of travel time and in being able to communicate fairly rapidly to an extended group.

Telcos then extended their market by providing conference calling services to home consumers for an added fee. For some, it made sense to be able to bring a family or group with common interests together easily, usually to plan some physical event.

With the expansion of the internet, and in particular, the increasing availability and decreasing pricing for high speed internet access, conference calling has expanded far beyond its original uses.

For business, it remains a vital tool and has, actually, become far more useful as prices fall and the ease of use increases. Real time audio/video conferencing is already in use (and in some organizations has been for quite some time). As the cost of bandwidth decreases and the technology underlying audio-video transmission over networks improves, true real-time video conferencing will increase dramatically.

From: http://www.conferencecallogy.com/Conference-Calling-Evolved.html

Web and video conference call security:



In addition to the same security features as in an audio conference call be sure that your Web and video conferences have the following conference call security features in place:



*End-to-end encryption of the data link. Most use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and 128-bit AES encryption to protect your data stream from snoopers.



*Secure control over desktop sharing when sharing your keyboard and mouse during collaboration.



By using the security features built into most conference call solutions and practicing some basic security precautions you can keep your meetings and vital data safe from competitors and hackers.

From: http://www.conferencecallogy.com/Conference-Call-Security.html

Audio conference call security:



*Use the passcode assigned to your conference call at the time the reservation is made. This will prevent callers without the proper passcode from being admitted to the call.



*Protect the passcode and any other account information associated with the call. This means limiting who receives the information. Also get in the habit of shredding any documents that contain this information.



*Be sure to enable entry and exits tones to notify you when a participant joins or leaves the call.



*Require that participants identify themselves when joining the conference call and also take roll before commencing the conference.



*Lock the conference call so no one else can join it once begun.



*Disconnect all lines to the call at the end of the call to make certain there aren’t any side discussions after the conference has ended.



*Get in the habit of changing the call-in numbers and passcodes on a regular basis


From: http://www.conferencecallogy.com/Conference-Call-Security.html