Teleconferencing

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Mozilla has a teleconferencing system we use for community meetings.

Dialing In

Normal phones (POTS)

  • California: +1 650 903 0800, extension 92
  • US toll-free: +1 800 707 2533, password 369
  • Toronto: +1 416 848 3114, extension 92
  • Mountain View office or soft phone: extension 92
  • Paris office: extension 76892

Then, enter the conference number followed by #.

Beware of "cheap international calls" dial-through deals - you may well get poor line quality and noise, which affects everyone on the call, not just you.

Internet calling (VoIP)

  • Gmail Chat works well and is free. You need to have Flash and <a href="http://www.google.com/talk/">Google Talk plugin</a> installed. Just paste +1 650 903 0800 into the Gmail Chat box that doesn't look like it accepts phone numbers.
  • SkypeOut is free if you use the 800 number.
  • Most conference rooms have public SIP addresses like sip:confXXX@mozilla.com . Replace the XXX with the conference room number.
  • Mozilla employees can <a href="https://intranet.mozilla.org/Softphone">use VPN+SIP</a>.

You could also set up your own SIP account with one of the many available providers, add credit and dial out using that.

Attending A Meeting

Please mute yourself after joining, and at any time if you are not actively participating. All mobile phones and softphones, and some landline phones, have a mute button - use that for preference.

If you are using a phone without a mute button, or if you have a line noise problem on the normal phone system, then "*1" mutes and unmutes you at the Mozilla end. The trouble with this is that a) people can hear the 'beep', and b) you can forget to unmute because there is no visual indicator. Prefer mute buttons with obvious visual indicators, and get into the habit of checking them before speaking.

VoIP

Learn how to use your software. Prefer VoIP clients (like <a href="http://www.icanblink.com">Blink</a>) which show latency and packet loss so you can tell easily when your connection is sucking. Consider making a test call to your provider's echo service first to make sure everything is working fine. Watch out for your microphone being muted in your OS settings.

Get a decent headset. If you are planning to participate using VoIP, never do so just using the microphone and speakers built into your laptop. You'll get poor sound quality, and everyone apart from you will get lots of echo too. (This is particularly bad, as you don't notice the problem, but everyone else does.) Get a decent headset. Mozilla IT recommends the <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Plantronics-Audio-Behind---head-Headset/dp/B003CNJRAG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311708088&sr=8-1">Plantronics .Audio 646 DSP USB headset</a>. You can get them for £19 ($25; €17) from various branches of Amazon, and they work on Windows, Mac and Linux. If you are a regular participant in Mozilla conference calls and £19 is more than you can afford, let us know and we'll get one for you.

Get a stable internet connection. Airport and hotel WiFi are often not good.

Volume controls

  • Pressing * by itself will give you an audio menu with the following:
  • *1 mute/unmute and exit the menu
  • *4/*6 make the conference quieter/louder to you (see below)
  • *7/*9 make yourself quieter/louder to everyone else (see below)

When dialing the volume controls, you remain in the menu. You can dial 4, 6, 7, or 9 repeatedly in any combination to adjust the volume in each direction. Please dial 8 once you get it to the volume level you want to exit the menu. If you forget to dial 8 it will eventually time out and tell you "Invalid Option"

Setting Up A Meeting

Picking a conference number

Conference settings

Mozilla employees can use the <a href="https://intranet.mozilla.org/Voicemail_access">Asterisk web interface</a> to manage settings such as password protection, mute-by-default, moderation (nobody can talk until the moderator arrives), entry beeps, and recording. You can also view and manage the current inhabitants of your conference room.

Moderator controls

  • *2 - lock/unlock the room
  • *3 - eject the last person to enter
  • *81 - Roll call or user count
  • *82 - Eject all non-admins
  • *83 - Mute/unmute all non-admins

Inviting participants

  • On the wiki page for your meeting, write e.g.
    • Dial-in: Audio-only conference# 225
      • People with Mozilla phones or softphones please dial x4000 Conf# 225
      • US/Toll-free: +1 800 707 2533, (pin 4000) Conf# 225
      • US/California/Mountain View: +1 650 903 0800, x4000 Conf# 225
      • US/California/San Francisco: +1 415 762 5700, x4000 Conf# 225
      • US/Oregon/Portland: +1 971 544 8000, x4000 Conf# 225
      • CA/British Columbia/Vancouver: +1 778 785 1540, x4000 Conf# 225
      • CA/Ontario/Toronto: +1 416 848 3114, x4000 Conf# 225
      • UK/London: +44 (0)207 855 3000, x4000 Conf# 225
      • FR/Paris: +33 1 84 88 37 37, x4000 Conf# 225
      • Gmail Chat (requires Flash and the Google Talk plugin): paste +1 650 903 0800 into the Gmail Chat box that doesn't look like it accepts phone numbers
      • SkypeOut is free if you use the 800 number to include instructions with the "California" and "US toll-free" phone numbers, along with a link to this page. (<a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance/MemShrink#Meetings">Example</a>)
  • Consider including an <a href="http://etherpad.mozilla.com:9000/">Etherpad</a> URL for notetaking, an IRC backchannel, and a physical location in one or more offices.
  • Be sure to specify the time zone in your messages. For recurring meetings, the Mozilla standard is to fix the time in the US Pacific Timezone, rather than in UTC.
  • Mozilla employees can use Zimbra to find out when invitees are free, send invitations, and book a conference room.

Troubleshooting

Help! Where's that noise coming from?

Causes

  • If a speaker has an echo, someone else is causing it by not being muted (usually because they're not <a href="#VOIP">using a headset</a>, and their built-in mike is picking up the speaker output). Don't blame the speaker.
  • If there is background noise, someone is not muted.
  • If there's some weird feedback noise, it's probably because someone is not <a href="#VOIP">using a headset</a> and is not muted.

Solutions

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