Fellow Trainers,
In the last year or so, I've tried several major webconferencing
platforms (e.g., Webex, Elluminate Live!), various "me-too" products
(mostly open-source), and more recently some of the new upstarts
(e.g., FUZE Meeting) in my training classes.
Naturally, all have good (and not so good) features. My biggest
complaint is that, using VOIP, I can never get reliably fast and
accurate audio with any of these products--even if my customers are in
the same neighborhood!
I used to think these problems were due to the inevitable
uncertainties and delays associated with UDP packet routing. Then I
started using (free) Google Talk for most of my outgoing phone calls--
on the same network that supports my webconferencing activities--and I
noticed that this service is MUCH more reliable in providing short echo-
latencies and fewer of those /really/ annoying "catch-up" incidents
(where one hears a speeded-up version of delayed audio squeezed in
before the impending arrival of the next segment--think "Harold the
Chipmunk").
(BTW, some vendors give a SKYPE option along with the VOIP option, but
I haven't tested that; I suspect its behavior wouldn't be much
different than VOIP. Comments?)
Of course, in cases where you're training employees of Corporation Z,
you can just negotiate with them to let you use their phone lines
instead of VOIP for audio, but I'm looking for more general approaches
that will work with homogeneous groups of students, which would seem
to be most naturally handled at the training provider level (and
rightly so).
Many of the vendors will rent you dedicated phone lines to bypass
these audio troubles, but at 6 cents per minute or so (roughly $25 per
student per 7 hour training day) that can get rather pricey.
If this service is to be a new "cost of business" in this brave new
virtual world, so be it, but I think I'd prefer to buy pre-paid
Verizon phone cards at Costco (close to 3 cents/minute) and provide
their "magic numbers" to my (USA) customers as an alternative! (Maybe
Peter Scott's Costco sells USA+Canada cards?)
Okay, that's the background. I hear you asking "Is there a question
here?" The answer is YES!
*) Would any of the trainers out there care to recommend the best
webconferencing products that they've used, and report on how
they've dealt with the Audio Quality issue?
-Tim
P.S. FWIW, my /second/ biggest complaint is that almost all
webconferencing vendors coyly state that "Linux should also
work (because its all Flash and Java)" on their supported-OS
pages, but take it from me, that is definitely not the case.
8-{ Sigh ...
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| Tim Maher, PhD (206) 781-UNIX http://www.consultix-inc.com |
| tim at ( TeachMePerl, TeachMeLinux, or TeachMeUnix ) dot Com |
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