FreeConference.com operates a free conferencing service. Each caller is charged a long-distance rate for connecting to the conference bridge. The conference bridge service is free to all users.

We have opened a market for small businesses, government agencies, non-profits, community organizations and others, who would otherwise not be able to use confer-encing services.

Through this service, we generate long distance fees for interexchange carriers who pay a portion of their fees to local networks to compensate for use of their networks. We receive a relatively modest fee from local networks for generating traffic.

FreeConference.com also offers premium 800 # services that are used as needed by these same customers for a per minute fee. The 800 # service is also provided by interexchange carriers who are paid directly by FreeConference for this service.

No. International forwarding "schemes", such as FuturePhone, transit calls through a variety of local connections in order to collect termination fees. These businesses do not terminate calls in the local area.

FreeConference is different. All of our calls terminate in our co-located facilities in the local network.

Our business is not that sexy. We are simply conference calls for less at no additional cost beyond the carrier's toll charge to the user.

The giant interexchange carriers and wireless service providers are unilaterally blocking calls to free teleconference services, such as FreeConference. Instead of using the established process for rate review and relief, the carriers are blocking their own customer's access to toll-based conferencing. This unilateral action is illegal and an abuse of monopoly power and the public trust.

FreeConference's service is completely legal. The giant interexchange carriers and wireless service providers make money on every call placed through our services. Their objection is that they could make more money if these callers used 800/888 services or their own various conferencing services

Cingular spokesperson Mark Siegel said that the reason the company has decided to start blocking these services is because high volumes of calls to similar services are costly, and the cost for those calls aren't passed on to the customer. But these costs are already compensated for through the long distance revenues Cingular collects.

The giant interexchange carriers and wireless service providers make money on every call placed through our services. Their objection is that they could make more money if these callers used 800/888 services or the carriers' own conference services.

AT&T/Cingular offer the ability to have up to five people conversing on the same line at once, in addition to having their own teleconferencing services available. Cingular's own customer service people have suggested a "work-around" solution to the free conference blocking by having every fifth person call another five people and so on. Clearly, they intended their customers to have access to one-to-many communications and can't simply limit this to their own service.This logic would also deny you access to recorded services, your own voicemail, and many other services.

AT&T and Cingular derive revenue from long distance call rates every time someone calls into FreeConference’s teleconference services. The average revenue for long distance service is about 8 cents a minute. Payments to local networks for these calls average about four cents a minute leaving carriers with an opportunity for significant net profit on every call made to our services.

The term "losing money" assumes the without our service customers would pay the much more expensive rates that the carriers charge for 800/888 services or the carriers' own teleconferencing.

Giant interexchange carriers typically charge 15 or 20 cents per minute for providing 800 or 888 teleconference services, if you can get them to approve you as a customer. These services are over-featured, over-serviced (operators standing by!), and over-priced. Companies can spend thousands of dollars a year on teleconference services that can be provided much more simply and inexpensively.

Customers of free teleconference services dial into a conference line and are charged local and long-distance rates set by the FCC. These rates are reset every two years by the FCC. The FCC also allows these carriers to seek regulatory review and relief if they believe these rates are being abused in some fashion. This is a standard process in the telecommunications industry. We are providing a service that is good for consumers and creates profit for every business in the supply chain.

Our bridges are located in many states, including Iowa, for many reasons, including the ability to access fees that support this business. And we do help drive call volumes to low traffic rural areas (who otherwise could be in a position of "subsidizing" interex-change carriers for originating their traffic). At various times, the interexchange carriers and the local networks have taken advantage of rates set by the FCC in these areas to benefit their businesses.We have been able to benefit as well by putting our bridges where we know we will generate returns and receive excellent service from the local networks so we can provide reliable service to our customers.

If the interexchange carries have a concern about individual rates set for these areas, we encourage them to use the established process to have the FCC adjust them. Instead, they are using monopolistic power to block access to our services because they disagree with certain approved, publicly filed rates at individual local networks (7 local networks out of thousands). Blocking is an illegal tactic and is an abuse of public trust.

Telecom is a highly regulated industry, and we abide by the rules and regulations of the industry. While we benefit from being able to collect a commission on this traffic, our business does not solely rely on this. We do not believe this is simply a business issue for us, but an issue of how telecommunications monopolies are managed for the benefit of consumers while creating profit opportunities for carriers. Without free conferencing, the consumer would lose, and only to support higher profits for carriers. Free conferencing is a clean win for the consumer, particularly for the SMB market.

Small business is the engine that drives our economy, with over 25 million businesses nationwide. Over 20 million of these businesses operate with a handful of employees and this is the profile of our typical customer.

We think that this conflict demonstrates that interexchange carriers are not afraid to use their monopolistic powers to control applications that reduce their profits. It's not hard to imagine that these same predatory business practices would be used to control and prioritize traffic on the internet in a way that benefits carrier business models and squashes innovation.

Large carriers have been illegally blocking calls into FreeConference's services. We could not let that impression go uncorrected, nor could we fail to inform our customers about steps they need to take to continue to receive reliable service from us.

These customers rely upon our service for day-to-day operations. We simply let them know about alternatives to blocked call numbers so that these actions would have minimal disruption on their businesses. We also provided information that would allow consumers to register their dissatisfaction with large carriers and the agencies that regulate them.

Our customers have been very vocal about this issue. Many are nonprofits and small businesses, that just do not view more expensive 800/888 based teleconference services as an option. An unintended consequence of this action is that traffic that is currently using our service would move to VOIP conferencing solutions.