Conference call software: best quickest simplest?

August 24, 2023 7:38 AM

I have to schedule a conference call with some external colleagues, and am realizing I have never done it before. Voice only. Does anyone hate freeconference.com? Is there a trusted and above all SIMPLE source for this? Free, quick, allows people to call in from their phones rather than me trying to merge multiple calls from my personal cell?

Thanks for facilitating!!

posted by Lawn Beaver to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

Zoom or Google Meets will do this — there’s always a call in number.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 7:39 AM on August 24, 2023 [4 favorites]

With Google Meet not only is there a phone dial-in number but any participant who has a Gmail account can join from their desktop web browser if they prefer.
posted by staggernation at 8:04 AM on August 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

We've used each of Zoom, Google Meet, and FreeConferenceCall.com for phone-in meetings, and they all work well.

Out of those three, FreeConferenceCall.com might be the simplest to set up as you don't have as many options..
posted by golden at 8:42 AM on August 24, 2023

I’ve done this a few times in the past few years with Zoom, using audio only. People can use their computers, a mobile app, or call in by phone.
posted by bluedaisy at 9:35 AM on August 24, 2023

Which countries do your callers need to call in from? Some providers only support some countries.

I have used http://www.uberconference.com/ which is NOT affiliated with the ride-hailing company Uber and which had phone-in capabilities. It's now Dialpad and may have changed a lot in the past 3 years.
posted by brainwane at 10:32 AM on August 24, 2023

Response by poster: Thanks everyone! We don't need the call after all, I can sit on these answers in hopes I don't need them again this year.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 10:36 AM on August 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

For anyone coming back to this later, I would definitely recommend against FreeConferenceCall -- a previous employer used it and there are definitely some issues. The biggest one is that it's unavailable or pay-by-the-minute for T-Mobile subscribers and possibly some other carriers as well. The way their "free" calls work is that the use a type of number that charges the carrier more than a standard long distance fee and for which they get a kickback, and carriers don't want to pay. Sometimes a number will work for a while, then it gets cut off and callers will get a "this number is not in your plan" message that is very unclear about what will actually happen or what to do about it. The obvious work-around would be to use the web version instead, but it frequently had serious performance issues, and would sit on a loading spinner for around 5 minutes before letting people in.
posted by duien at 11:42 AM on August 24, 2023