RE: [ga] Preliminary report on the NC June 25th meeting

["Roeland M.J. Meyer" <rmeyer@mhsc.com>]

In that case, we shouldn't host the calls out of France, too expensive.

There are various options. One is to simply host the calls out of the
US. But the MOST important option is to use the Internet Phone
technology. Aren't we an Internet tech group?

MHSC has offices in Colorado and California. I spend 3-4 hours, in
InternetPhone conferences, per day. Were that done through normal
telephony lines it would cost $600US to $1200US per month.

The technology works, I use it every day, both MS-NetMeeting and
InternetPhone (dependant on who is on the other end). I even do it
through SSH encrypted tunnels (DES3 and Blowfish), as a normal modus
operandi, if privacy and authentication were an issue. The only
limitation is that links less than 56Kbps are a littel crackley (static)
and the slower links have a high degree of latency. IOW, it works
through a modem but you have to live with some caching delays and packet
loss.

MS-Netmeeting even does video conferencing and it is available for free
download, from Microsoft. However, it does require more bandwidth on
part of the conference host (anyone out there with a 1Mbps connection to
spare?).

We have the technology, let's USE it!

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ga@dnso.org [mailto:owner-ga@dnso.org]On Behalf
> Of Elisabeth
> PORTENEUVE
> Sent: Sunday, July 04, 1999 4:20 AM
> To: avc@interport.net; council@dnso.org; ga@dnso.org; javier@aui.es
> Subject: RE: [ga] Preliminary report on the NC June 25th meeting
>
>
> Antony Van Couvering wrote:
> >
> > Javier,
> >
> > Thanks for this update.  Three questions:
> >
> > 1. Is the reason for not allowing listeners on the NC
> teleconferences one of
> > cost?  If so, perhaps we could come up with sponsors.
> Typically most of the
> > cost is borne by the person phoning in - as I understand
> it, the cost of
> > adding lines to the bridge is not heavy.  If there is
> another reason, I
> > would like to understand the rationale.
> >
> ==> Antony,
>
>     I do not know about teleconference cost in the US, but have some
>     understanding for France.
>     The calling person is charged the telephone fees, which for the
>     international calls (Europe or US) is close to $US 25 per hour.
>     Much more if the number is in AsiaPacific or Africa or
> LatinACaribbean.
>     The hosting organiser is charged with fees per each caller and
>     per time, and it is not marginal (the exemple I have is
> approximately
>     $US 10 per caller per hour).
>     There are certainly technical limits about the number of possible
>     callers.
>
>     If we accept NC teleconferences' listeners, we will certainly
>     give an enormous advantage to the North America, and add an
>     additional burden on the reminding part of the world. I do not
>     think you would like it.
>
>     Elisabeth
>