Guide to Conferencing Equipment and Supplies

Find the right conferencing equipment for your small business
By Nikki Wheeler

Technology facilitates easier ways to work together and communicate much more effectively. Have regular meetings easily through conference calls. Stay in contact with traveling employees or those that work from home using audio conferencing equipment.

Get conferencing equipment to allow multiple people to take part in a phone conversation at once on a single phone. Having the right equipment can result in a successful phone call. The right equipment prevents your conference from being a waste of time while you organize paperwork and have people on multiple phones.

When shopping for conference equipment and supplies you must:

Analyze your business conferencing equipment needs by considering things like how many people will be participating in calls, and where the calls will take place.
Be prepared to invest some money in the right equipment.
Remember the importance of sound quality.

Action Steps

The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Take advantage of conference call services There are third party companies out there that specialize in organizing conference calls. They set up the conference call for a predetermined time at a toll free number that everyone participating in the call will dial. There are additional services as well such as call recording, call transcription, participant pre-notification by fax or email, audio streaming, and sometimes they even provide the audio conference equipment.

I recommend: Get a free quote online at BuyerZone.com. Intercall and AT&T both offer conferencing services.

Get the basic teleconference equipment: microphone and speaker unit The unit is designed to allow people in a large room to hear and speak clearly into one central unit. The unit is usually the size of a phone that plugs into a regular phone jack with a regular phone cord, and it is normally placed in the center of a table to be surrounded by participants.

I recommend: Popular teleconference equipment models are Polycom, SoundStation and ClearOne.

Buy an adapter for teleconferencing equipment Most teleconferencing equipment systems work only with a standard analog telephone jack. Nowadays many jacks are digital, so you need an adapter to make the conferencing system work. Shop around for a compatible adapter instead of getting one from the manufacturer which costs much more.

I recommend: Get a Cisco or D-Link adapter.

Find audio conference equipment with expansion capabilities This is extremely important if the conferencing equipment is not stationary. The equipment needs to accommodate changes in room size, amount of windows, and ceiling height.

I recommend: Avaya and Merlin Magix offer conferencing equipment that is expandable.

Purchase teleconference equipment with full-duplex mode Regular speakerphones operate on half-duplex mode, which means using a microphone mutes the sound. Full-duplex allows all parties in the call to speak and listen congruently through a digital receiver.

I recommend: Try Nortel Audio teleconferencing equipment or the Polycom SoundPoint 2, which also has video conferencing capabilities.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

Test the conference quipment in the setting it will be used in before purchasing it.
Rent the equipment for conferences before buying it if trials are not allowed.
Shop around for used conference supplies to save on costs.

FEATURED LISTINGS

Call Conference Server - Free Download
Host unlimited number of conference calls. Features virtual conference rooms, ability to upload documents & more. Supports VoIP and standard lines.