Conference Phones

If you are looking for the best conference phone for Skype for Business or other Unified Communications platform then we have a few selections based upon price, quality and ease of deployment. The essence of a business conference phone is that it allows a few people to take part in a meeting without the costs and hassle of travel or making cups of tea for 20 people. Modern conference units have a host of features designed to make their setup, and use, as simple as possible and the units below from Polycom, Jabra and Sennheiser all integrate perfectly with Skype for Business.

Any business that has tasted the easy joy that audio conferencing brings to arranging business meetings will be aware of the facility by which one can schedule, invite and set up remote business meetings. Leading the way have been the Polycom Conference phones of which we have all become familiar.

We felt that we should mention the The BT X300 Conferencing Unit, having talked about its big brother the BT X500 previously but the X300 deserves a mention by virtue of its simplicity and price.

Much like the way in which Hoover became a byword for the household vacuum cleaner Polycom has established itself as the 'de-facto' word in business conferencing equipment. Business conferencing has revolutionised business meetings by allowing immediate multiperson discussions between offices at a moment's notice. Whether over IP or normal telephone line these devices can, and do, provide fully duplex clear two way conversations.

When we first saw the Cisco 8831 we thought it odd that someone would plug a loudspeaker into a calculator but, following exhaustive investigation, it became apparent that this was a very nicely designed conference phone.

Conference phones are a useful addition to businesses large and small and allow one to set up and take part in business meetings at a moment's notice.

Next week the CeBIT exhibition takes place in Hanover, Germany which covers a range of subjects in advancements and innovation in all things Digital. We were fascinated by the content of some of the talks which are scheduled on Internet security as well as the concept of "Industry 4.0" whereby manufacturing processes are revolutionised by virtue of the "smart" factory where the machines are more intelligent. Naturally as a communications supplier we were most interested at some new concepts in the pipeline from Polycom - a world leader in conferencing equipment and solutions.

Sennheiser, well known for their high-end audio equipment, are also key players in the business market with their computer and telephone headsets and speakerphones.The Sennheiser SP Speakerphone range are well designed, easy to use portable speakerphones that can be used by both business professionals and for personal use.

This Cisco Conference phone comes with the moniker 'Unified' which means that it has the facility to bring together the many media channels via which we conduct business communications such as speech/ voice, video collaboration, mobile and the PSTN.

The Cisco Unified IP Conference Station 7937G allows a crystal clear audio transmission using VoIP ( Voice over IP ) making use of Wideband Technology to deliver a truly state of the art experience. Continue reading →

We all love a conference phone which is sleek and does its job without any fuss and that is why we took to the Konftel 300W so readily. It fulfills the main criteria - easy, good and lovely to look at.

Perhaps the most striking and useful feature of the 300W is that it operates as a DECT cordless conference phone, meaning that it can sit at the centre of a conference table wirelessly ( NB it also is rechargeable with up to 60 hours of talk time ) - only needing registration to its base station to operate. If you run a business VoIP/ IP/ SIP type system the Konftel 300W can be plugged in via USB to take advantage of whatever platform you are running for your communications.

As one would expect the unit is easy to use and delivers fantastic sound quality ( HD Omnisound no less ) over a good area, indeed it is suitable for large conference areas.

The BT X500 conference phone is a newcomer to the block, one traditionally dominated by Polycom and Avaya - but BT have a tradition of delivering high quality and well designed products built around their brand and the BT X500 is no different.

The recession of the past few years has forced businesses, and indeed anyone who needs to communicate with others, to look at how they conduct their meetings.

This has led to a big re-think and for businesses to question the validity and expense of send a group of people to meet together, when sometimes a conference call will suffice. Accommodating this increase in demand for conference services has been challenging for the telecommunications industry, with a series of cloud based and traditional telephony alternatives, to suit anyone's audio conferencing requirements.