Last update: 01/16/00

I have been doing some experiments in this area. It seems that there is no need to dial long-distance to anyone anymore. The computers must be equipped with a sound card and microphone and speakers. The simplest way to set this up is to download the free Microsoft NetMeeting (http://www.microsoft.com/netmeeting). This is a simple to use teleconferencing application. After installing it, simply initialize it.

This application implements bi-directional speech transmission, a chat messaging function as well as white boarding and file transfer. Having these other functions to augment speech is very useful, and allows a glimpse of what the broadband future will allow. The video transmission cannot be used reasonably on a dial-up line, but it is very useful on a fast line like ISDN or ADSL. On a slower line, the speech transmission will sound clipped and broken. Also, if a file transfer is in progress, the specch transmission will also be affected.

The NetMeeting application has a test wizard that will drive the speakers and auto-sense the gain (sound level) of the microphone. This sound level seems to have several problems when using this type of application. I do not think that it has anything to do with NetMeeting, it is a question of isolation of sound.

There are many omni-directional mikes, and this is the most common. I have been using a directional mike from Labtec. This mike works best when pointed directly at the sound source. Sound outside of the narrow column extending from the end of the mike is severely attenuated (i.e. lowered). This mike is very cheap at less than $20.

With an omni-directional mike , lots of background noise is picked up. This is like talking on a speaker phone and it has many of the problems associated with a speaker phone. A speaker phone can have "turn-around" problems where if the people on either end of the connection speak simultaneously, the phone speaker may not play all of the speech. This mike is also very reasonably priced.

As far as video, almost all of the cameras in CompUSA cost about $50. The most popular brand of camera until about 6 months ago was QuickCam. At that time, Logitech bought them out, and I decided to buy their Home model . It includes a microphone (not much use given the info above) and costs twice as much as the cheap cameras, from IBM and others.