Arthur,
You wanted to know if you had hardware sufficient to handle an
Internet-voice conference.
A 14.4 modem is pushing it, because the the way the compression algorithms
work. You will still be able to hear, and participate, it'll just a little
choppy. A 28.8 modem is definitely sufficient. And for those using
corporation accounts, you may have a T1 or T3 connection to the net, which
has more than enough bandwidth.
I regularly listen to the radio over the net (as my radio doesn't get very
good reception in a building full of 400 computers operating
simultaneously), but at work I've got a T3 connection to the net. At home
I've got a 14.4, and I can still listen, it's just choppy.
The second issue is software. I don't know if Netscape or Microsoft have
ported their "net talk" programs to the Mac yet or not. They're available
for Windows 95, but I don't believe they're available for Windows 3.1. And
I'm not sure what's available on UNIX or OS/2.
I've been doing some experiments where I talk to people all over the globe
simultaneously: One in Sweden, one in Australia, and one in Canada. No
problem. And, we've actually being running some tests to see how well this
type of thing works in providing Technical Support, and things are looking
up.
The other problems I see with having such an "Internet Conference" is the
time zone differences. I'm typing this message at 8:30 a.m.; in London
it's 3:30 p.m.; in Moscow it's 6:30 p.m.; in Bangkok it's 10:30 p.m.; and
in Tokyo it's 12:30 a.m. Personally I don't want to be up at all hours of
the night to listen to a conference, and I'm sure that other people around
the globe don't want to be either. It seems we could do it early in the
morning, in the US (Pacific Time), and we'd be able to get everyone around
the globe at a decent time.
I'm on vacation this week, so I'll be checking around with some of my
friends to see if I can get the disk space somewhere. And I'll look into
accepting credit (or debit) cards through the Net. I have a friend who
left Novell to help people set up Adult Sites on the net, and she knows
all about credit card access. I'll give her a call.
How many people would be interested in such a thing?
--Benjamin B. Compton bbcompton@aol.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>