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[Kevin Wood]

FFS, my bloody wifi is *REALLY* pissing me off. Another long reply lost. FFS. So short reply this time.

If any of your members have a paid for Office365 Subscription, then Teams/Skype for Business would be free, and other members can join via web link. Do a pre run a few days before so everyone can get the plugins installed (same applies to all options.

Cisco Webex is king, but don't think they do a free option.  Same with Citrix's Goto Meeting.


Worth trying SIP providers for (audio only) free conferencing options.

You really should get on to BT about your Wi-fi 

My Wifi aint provided by BT.

The issue here is people are stupid, and don't stick to the 3 non overlapping channels, instead going for the overlapping ones, thinking they are available.  So, as every single channel from 1-13 is in use, everything has overlapping channel interference, making 2.4Ghz unreliable .  Tempted to acquire a jammer, just to knock everyone off, so they actually bother to look up how to set them up


5GHz works well, but not all my devices are 5GHz capable

Microwave oven with the door interlocks bypassed will do the job.

Set it up in the garden and you've got a nice barbecue with almost zero fire risk, too.

[Doctor Gollum]

My Driver CPC course is being done via Microsoft Teams... seems to have downloaded to my Win8 laptop... will let you know whether it's actually any good in a week or so

[TheBoy]

My Driver CPC course is being done via Microsoft Teams... seems to have downloaded to my Win8 laptop... will let you know whether it's actually any good in a week or so

It works, but if you're hosted on UK South, that had capacity constraints before this current bout of hysteria started.

Any form of VoIP is desperately sensitive to latency.  So do what you can to reduce it - hardwired landline type broadband, cable to router rather than wifi, reduce other traffic etc.

A delay of 50mS will start to introduce audio quality issues, and 100mS cause people to talk over each other.  Proper VoIP solutions go to great lengths to ensure minimal latency, but the likes of Skype, Teams, Zoom and the opensource one called something like jitshit look at featureset over quality. Some options allow PSTN dial-in for audio, which can sometimes improve things, or sometimes make it unworkable, YMMV.  Probably due to where the actual conference bridge is being hosted, and the loading on the PSTN gateways.

Videowise, it doesn't really matter.  Unless screen/slide/whiteboard sharing, and that will be 100% down to the upload bandwidth of the presenter.


I regularly use the following in a business capacity, listed in order of best first (in my experience)
Webex
Goto
Skype for Business (on-prem)
Teams

[Migv6 le Frog Fan]

Zoom concerns me a bit. Apologies for the link to the Grauniad.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/01/do-you-know-how-zoom-is-using-your-data-heres-why-you-should

[TheBoy]

Zoom has clarified its position on "End to End" (E2E) encryption (ie, it doesn't), tried to make using conference passwords the default to avoid ID stuffing (brute forcing conferencing IDs), and made some noises about what it does with data it collects.

I too would be wary of Zoom, but for some, these concerns might be a non issue....    ...after all, people seem perfectly happy to use Facebook, and they will give *ALL* your data, and all the data of your contacts, and all the data of their contacts, and all the data of their contacts to anyone who asks.  And will package said data up nicely if you pay for it.

[Migv6 le Frog Fan]

One of the many reasons I wont sign up to it.

[Doctor Gollum]

Have to say very impressed with MS Teams.

CPC courses being delivered in groups of 20. A couple of people have been having the occasional issue with wifi, but generally solved by them turning their cameras off to minimise buffering... That said, one such person is participating from tother side of Aberdeen.

Also been a few issues with getting videos to play, but these seem to be down to course leader operating system issues and/or familiarity with the technology rather than with MS Teams specifically

Using such a platform is obviously a learning curve away from traditional meeting formats, but as long as people only switch their microphones on to speak rather than leaving them on permanently and the 'chair' manages the questions/discussions, it's almost as effective as having a discussion around a table

[STEMO]

My missus has been using zoom throughout the school closures with no problems at all.


I read in the news this morning that the guy who owns/developed zoom is now worth $7.5 billion.

[dave the builder]

I notice the Wifi fails on news debates etc just as a difficult question needs answering 

[Kevin Wood]

My salt mine got MS teams sorted out about a month before this struck. I'd say that was quite a lucky strike.

It has the usual M$ traits of hiding the options you really want, pestering you with ones that are of no interest and second guessing you (wrongly) all the time, but seems to do the job. I hate to think what a mess we'd be in without it, having made a transition from 100% office based to 95% WFH overnight.

I'm sure the first iteration of IM software used to be much more intuitive, though (without all the audio, video and calendaring bells and whistles, etc. of course).