Audio conferencing is clearly a benefit to your business. Previous articles have discussed plenty of reasons why an audio call can improve the relationships you have with your employees and customers. Also it helps to promote unity within your business. One can see the advantage of the convenience using conferencing services would be. There is plenty of talk about many features that are currently available but clearly some readers are confused by some of the terminology as well as the technology. This article will begin to go a little more in depth to the features many of the popular conferencing call providers offer.

I don’t want to assume anything so the first thing I’d like to mention is you need a telephone line to hold a conference call. Sounds silly but you would be surprised how many people wonder about that and actually think there is something mysterious about audio conferencing. What people get confused with is the types of lines that are available. A standard telephone line is like the one you currently use in your home. If you work from home the you should know that it is possible to have a dedicated line just for audio conferencing.

With the advances in technology, one can conduct a phone call over the internet and still appear to be using the same line. VoIP is what it is called and it stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol. Basically the protocols which are used to carry the voice signals over the internet provider network are usually referred to as Voice over IP or VoIP protocols. VoIP can actually make some things easier to perform than on a traditional phone line.

Most of the features available on a regular line such as 3-way calling, automatic redial, call forwarding, and caller ID are usually available but of course you need to check with your provider. The best thing about VoIP is it is not location dependent. All that is necessary is an internet connection. Security may also be an issue but can be minimized by using existing off the shelf protocols as Secure Real-time Transport Protocol. One would have to then encrypt and authenticate the data but the technology makes this quite simple to do.

All of the above may make your head spin but it is important to know this if you are holding an audio conferencing call. Many of the providers may use VoIP but not tell you and if certain precautions and protocols are not in place, you may not have as reliable service as you would like. Doing your due diligence in the beginning with your conferencing provider will allow you to suffer less headaches. In past articles we covered audio features that can help improve your as well as video conferencing terminology and how it applies to your business as well as personal needs.