I saw someone asked the question: “Can last-minute participants use my personal pin to access this conference call?”
The answer is yes. last-minute participants can access the conference call using this method
I saw this posting from a prospective corporate user: “I often use free conference call services for my work. I have recently become concerned about the sustainability of the business model. Because of the high interchange fees, I expect that carriers will increasingly block calls to these services. What makes Rondee’s model more sustainable - and therefore more reliable for businesses - than its competitors?”
There has recently been extensive publicity concerning VOIP carriers, most notably Google Voice, blocking calls to services located in rural areas. The problem came about because the rural phone companies in these particular areas impose exorbitant tariffs on the national carriers who originate these calls. The reason that the free conferencing services partner with these rural carriers is because the rural carriers are able to collect high tariffs on these calls. Such tariffs, in some cases, have been five to ten times higher than the tariffs on normal call traffic. In turn, the free conference call services enter into more lucrative revenue share arrangements than would otherwise be possible.
Individual callers have historically not paid these tariffs; rather, they have been paid by the national carriers that originate the phone calls. With Google’s recent moves, there is now growing concern that these tariffs could get passed along to users of free conference services.
Rondee users have been totally unaffected by this controversy. This is because Rondee is the only major free conference call service that does not use the sort of rural dial-in numbers that are at the heart of this controversy.”
Rondee’s free conference call dial-in bridge is area code 619 — the metropolitan San Diego area code. Rondee does not charge for its regular service.
When you arrange a Rondee conference call you’ll see several boxes with options you can choose. All you need to do is check the box to record the call. Your invitees will be told that the call is being recorded. After the conference call is finished, just go back to Rondee.com (you can get to that page through “My Rondees” link at the top of ths screen once logged into your account; you’ll see a new link for the recording which appears on the page corresponding to that Rondee; you can also get back to that page by clicking on the link in the invitation email)
This is now Recurring Rondees work.
This means that users can stop a recurring call simply by unchecking the “Make this a recurring Rondee” checkbox.
Here are the steps to add someone to a Rondee conference:
First, navigate your way back to that Rondee’s page. You have two options:
1) You can either click on the link in the e-mail you received when you organized the Rondee; or
2) You can log back into your account, click on “My Rondees” and then select the particular Rondee you want to invite someone else to join
Once you are on that Rondee’s page, you will see a box titled “Invite more people”. Type in their email address and then click the done button which appears in the lowest right corner of the page
Rondee organizers frequently ask whether Rondee can be accessed internationally. The answer is definitely yes. As long as your users can dial 619-276-6333 (our bridge number is a California number) they can access Rondee.
Only Rondee gives you a convenient way to schedule calls on the web, a universal access number 619-2-RONDEE (619-276-6333) you can put in your speed-dial, and your very own virtual meeting space where registered users don’t need to remember random codes.
And, besides being free, Rondee also includes convenient web-based scheduling.
Over the weekend we had a user ask us about how the muting function works on Rondee. This is a topic that comes up quite a bit. Each participant on a Rondee conference call can mute or un-mute themselves. You press pound 1 to mute and then pound 1 to unmute. If you forget this option, you can always press pound to hear all options.
Folks sometimes ask, “I get that Rondee doesn’t charge - but how can you afford not to charge?” There are indeed providers that do not charge for their service because they have placed their bridge lines in remote and rural areas which are theoretically eligible to receive high interchange tariffs from larger telecom companies. One problem for users is when these companies get sued and their service interrupted by the same carriers who resist paying these tariffs (one cause of the busy tone issue you’ve probably seen press about).
We obviously have not gone this route - our bridge line is in the major metropolitan market of San Diego and so our users are not exposed to the risks mentioned above. So our business model is premised on developing a healthy and growing base of customers who find value in the Rondee conference calling service and then providing for those users who want to pay for special services such as toll-free premium access or transcription.
Recently a few of you have posted questions on this topic and I’ve had several users email me about it as well. Rondee does not charge you for use of the service. When you call Rondee, you are calling our 619-276-6333 bridge line in San Diego (619-2-RONDEE). These calls cost you no more and no less than any other regular long distance call you make from your home or office phone. If making a call to a 619 area code normally costs you 2 cents a minute, a Rondee call will cost you 2 cents a minute. To be clear, you will not pay us the 2 cents, you will pay your phone company the normal 2 cents. If you have a flat rate plan with your phone company where you pay $25 to $50 a month for all the calls you want, Rondee calls have zero incremental cost. For a cell phone user, calls to Rondee will be exactly like any other call you make: they will deduct minutes from your plan but there will be no special charges for calling Rondee.