Humming Phones

This week my phone developed a hum. Humming on the line is annoying to the person you are calling but they can always hang up. After a couple of hours listening to the hum, I felt like I was part of a sensory overload experiment. I heard humming even when I wasn't on the phone. I hear humming right now, as a matter of fact.

I thought it might be the equipment, so I tested using a different phone and I still heard the hum. Then I called the phone company and asked them to test my line for noise. The recorded message (that I could barely hear over the hum) told me that they would have a service technician contact me before 5 pm the following day. I limped through the next two days, borrowing other people's phones (it's a good way to find out who is a germaphobe), burning up minutes on my cell phone (I have figured out that my earrings can activate the mute button on my Blackberry touch screen) and begging my callers to please be patient, the phone company is coming to the rescue before 5 pm. At 4:49 pm, the phone company arrived and after a few minutes, I learned that my line was fine and I had two bad phones. At least I've got a new phone on order now.

So, why did I make you sit through this tale of telephony woe? To introduce the subject of audio quality on your web conference. I’ll spend my next few blog entries talking about audio and how you can take some small steps that will make a big difference.