Hello,
There are 2 American companies that provide, free of charge, the platform and other features to host conference calls for MULTIPLE participants at the same time.
The companies are located at www.freeconferencecall.com and www.freeconferencecalling.com
The only possible expense is the cost of long-distance to a regular number, usually in the U.S. state of Iowa.
Instead of PM travelling to locations outside Toronto for meet-and-greets, which would become prohibitively expensive if ever implemented, we could get together much more frequently via call-in platform.
The only drawback is if a customer does not have a Canada/USA add-on, which could be overcome by the purchase of a calling card.
The platform can support up to 1,000 callers at any one time, and last up to 6 hours (10 hours as an exception). One of the features for admins of the call-in is the ability to mute all callers in order to speak to them without interruption or background noise. Then, the admins could enable the call-in so that only one or up to 25 callers, at any given time, would be able to speak to the admins and other callers.
The service, from either company, can be used as often as one wishes, free of charge. Within hours of the conference call ending, a free audio file of the entire call is made available to the admins. The file could then be downloaded or streamed to those customers who were unable to attend the call. Depending upon the file's content, it potentially could be used as a marketing tool to convert potential customers into actual ones.
I have used one of the companies' platforms many times, and I know that such a service would be ideal for chatting, brainstorming, and giving feedback to the Public Mobile community team.
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with either company, and receive nothing for recommending their services.
Cheers.
