ChannelVision Sept-Oct 2017

and IT staff involvement. This meant that it took time, 10 or 15 minutes to set up a conference. It also meant that setting up a conference call was not intuitive. Many people use tablets, cell phones, and smartphones with intui- tive displays. The time to connect the conference needs to be as short as possible. The user interface must be as intuitive and simple as possible therefore not requiring training. The faster the time to connect, to collabo- rate, to communicate, the more often the conferencing technology will be used. The conference then becomes more productive. Challenges to Successful Conferencing There are a number of challenges when selecting conferencing technology: • You need to cover the entire room space. The room may be small or large and the acoustics will vary. In many cases the meeting room is temporary. • Sound clarity is extremely impor- tant. Clarity improves the conver- sation, reduces the errors, avoids frustration and lets the participants in the conference avoid confusion and perplexing conclusions. • There is always noise, outside and inside. There is electronic interfer- ence and sound reflections (echo). The better technologies have inte- grated noise/echo cancellation and interference isolation technologies. • Conference participants enter and leave the room. They move around the room. The acoustics change affecting the sound quality. The sound level can vary from being loud to near a whisper requiring adaptive conference devices. • Making the conference technol- ogy plug-and-play allows non- technical staff to easily experi- ence a very short time to estab- lish the conference. • There needs to be multiple ways for connecting to conferencing tech- nologies such USB, Bluetooth, SIP, Wi-Fi or cable. • The interface design for the user needs to be intuitive. It should be as easy as making a smartphone call. If the conference device re- quires training, then the technol- ogy selected will limit its use. Conferencing Products Keep Up The Yealink conference phones CP960 and CP920 are next-generation conference phones designed to make audio conferencing easy and clear for business of all sizes and encourage team collaboration. Yealink worked with Harman, a global audio solutions leader, to design the speaker phone of CP960. This is the first conference phone utilizing Harman’s acoustic technology in the industry. The CP960 offers unrivaled voice clarity, six-meter dead-zone free voice pickup range, innovative UI, scalability, as well as affordability. All together enable en- terprise-grade audio conferencing for every business. o Core Communications Where do you want your circuit? Type your address to find the fiber closest to you. TYPE ADDRESS HERE Mammoth aggregates 60+ fiber networks across the Western US September - October, 2017 | Channel Vision 77