[tei-council] TEI Telco February 2012

[James Cummings]

On 24/02/12 00:07, Piotr Bański wrote:
> Hi James,
>
> So toll-free is not free but funded by TEI-C? I was wondering: why not
> just skype -- it's worked for conference organisation and lots of other
> meetings. Or are skype conferences non-free as well?

If skype conversations are all held by people are a computer they 
are free. However, in the past it has often been found that the 
quality of the call seems to degrade depending on very 
unpredictable conditions. (e.g. the local bandwidth, individuals 
computers, whether they mute themselves etc.) While all of this 
is also true with non-skype teleconferences, it seems less 
frequent.  The board used this service for a teleconference 
recently (minutes here http://www.tei-c.org/Board/bm44.xml) and 
it seemed to go smoothly. The costs are not great, the Board 
meeting of about an hour cost "$113.49 (about $21 of which is 
taxes)" according to JohnU.  So for simplicity I suggest we try 
this for parallel with the Board. If it turns out to not work, or 
be much more expensive, then we can look at other options.

With this system it is _possible_ to record the conversation, I'm 
told, but I don't know if this incurs additional charges.  The 
idea of being able to record them to then write up minutes 
afterwards is attractive though.

Speaking of which, I have yet to have any volunteers to take 
minutes during the conference call.  I don't want to pick someone 
at random (but will)...how about I say that if you do the minutes 
this time, I won't make you do them next time?

-James

> There is a web service that some projects have used, and that is free
> for sure, but I think one has to reserve the time for more intensive
> telcos; it has video (yay) and it saves the conferences so that they can
> be replayed later.
>
> Would that be in any way interesting as an alternative, or not really?
> Not sure if I should research that.
>
> So long,
>
>    P.
>
> On 23/02/12 17:38, James Cummings wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> For the teleconference on Tuesday 28 February at 18:00 GMT, we'll
>> be dialling into a conferencing service run by
>> economyconferencecall.com.  This should allow you to dial in
>> toll-free and is using an account set-up by John Unsworth that is
>> being used for the Board as well and the TEI-C will pay for the
>> toll-free calls.  (Though the cost is per call so I'll try to
>> convince Sebastian to share a conference phone with me.)
>>
>> I'm not entirely sure where all of you will be on Tuesday, so
>> I've retrieved the toll free numbers for:
>>
>> US and Canada: 866-906-0040
>> France (excl. Monaco): 0-800-916-758
>> Germany: 0-800-182-0270
>> New Zealand: 0-800-446-259
>> Poland: 00-800-112-4271 (0.35 zloty charge)
>> UK: 0-800-635-0541
>>
>> Dial the appropriate number, and then enter the access code:
>> 4614041 followed by the # button. You'll be asked to give your
>> name. I'm told you can mute/unmute your line using *6 but have
>> never tried it myself.
>>
>> I have a draft agenda at http://wiki.tei-c.org/index.php/Council
>>
>> Can I have a volunteer to take minutes?
>>
>> -James
>>
>


-- 
Dr James Cummings, InfoDev,
Computing Services, University of Oxford