Analysis: Free Conference Calling Services Save Consumers At Least $656 Million Annually

From Small Businesses and Non-Profits to Individuals and Church Groups, Consumers Benefit From FreeConferenceCall.com; Report Finds That Free Conference Calls are Growing at Five Times the Rate of Paid Conference Calls

LONG BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--FreeConferenceCall.com, the largest privately held conferencing provider in the United States, released an analysis today that finds that free conference calling services are currently saving consumers at least $656 million annually. According to TeleSpan Publishing Corp (www.telespan.com), free toll conference calls are growing at five times the rate of fee-based toll conferencing services that companies like Verizon and AT&T provide.

“The tremendous growth of the industry is directly tied to these savings, as consumers realize that there is no need to pay extra for a conference call when they can get the same quality and reliable service for the cost of a regular call.”

“People from all over the world – from cities to rural areas, small business executives to non-profit organizations and individuals - are using free conferencing services to do everything from conducting their day to day business to planning family reunions – and they are saving over a half a billion dollars a year,” said David Erickson, Founder and CEO of FreeConferenceCall.com. “The tremendous growth of the industry is directly tied to these savings, as consumers realize that there is no need to pay extra for a conference call when they can get the same quality and reliable service for the cost of a regular call.”

A recent TeleSpan Publishing Corp report found that last year, consumers spent 9.3 billion minutes on free conference calls and 45.3 billion minutes on paid conference calls. The paid calls cost consumers $3.2 billion a year (an average of $.0706 per minute), which explains why free conference calls are growing at five times the rate of paid calls.

Approximately 15-20 million consumers, including businesses, individuals, non-profit organizations, church groups, government agencies, and other organizations in the United States and internationally, use FreeConferenceCall.com to communicate every month. Many of FreeConferenceCall.com’s customers migrated from the larger providers that charge for the same services (carriers like AT&T, Verizon, and their subsidiaries or partners). Many other customers would never have made a conference call because of the cost – particularly small businesses, non-profits, and individuals - but now do because of the savings.

FreeConferenceCall.com offers consumers a variety of services, including domestic audio conferencing, international audio conferencing, event conferencing, flat-rate conferencing, toll-free conferencing, outgoing call messaging, online conferencing, and voicemail messaging services. For more information visit http://www.freeconferencecall.com/.

About TeleSpan

TeleSpan was founded in 1981 as an industry analysis firm covering the field of teleconferencing. TeleSpan publishes annual reports covering trends in the industry and a 40-times-yearly newsletter called Electronic TeleSpan. TeleSpan is the most widely quoted source in the field of teleconferencing, famous for its accuracy and for its "Here's what I think" commentaries.

About FreeConferenceCall.com

FreeConferenceCall.com, the largest privately held conferencing provider in the United States, provides conference calling services to approximately 15-20 million callers a month. The company's reliable, high quality, reservation-less audio conferencing service is used to connect over 200 million calls a year around the world. FreeConferenceCall.com's pioneering all-digital network is built on proprietary media servers. A major milestone for FreeConferenceCall.com took place during the 2008 Presidential Election, when both President Obama’s and Senator McCain’s campaigns chose FreeConferenceCall.com to communicate with their supporters nationwide (utilizing over 1,000 accounts and over 5,000,000 minutes of conferencing). Related services provided by FreeConferenceCall.com include FreeConferencing.com, with conferencing web controls; FreeConferenceCallHD.com, with high definition sound geared to higher quality equipment; and FreeScreenSharing.com, with unlimited real-time sharing of desktop content. FreeConferenceCall.com was founded in 2001 and is based in Long Beach, California.