Polycom looks to silence that annoying conference call buzz

Computerworld - Michael Edebohls, a technology supervisor at a large New York-based law firm, started hearing complaints from attorneys about an annoying sound during conference calls more than a year ago.

The buzzing noise wasn't something lawyers would likely put up with as they hashed out sensitive legal matters over conference phones in dozens of meeting rooms, he realized. "We got a lot of complaints," he said in an interview. "It really was terrible."

The buzz, it turns out, occurred when attorneys set down their cell phones and wireless devices on the conference table or somewhere near the conference phone, Edebohls said. It became progressively worse as more attorneys and staff members began using wireless devices, creating radio frequency interference that affected conference phones. The buzzing could be picked up on either end of the call, according to Edebohls and industry experts.

"It's a strange stuttering sound, and you hear it all the time on podcasts and in webinars, and a lot of people don't know what it is," said Craig Mathias, an analyst at Farpoint Group in Ashland, Mass.

Edebohls said he sought out conference room audio equipment that would stifle the noise with RF shielding, starting at first with integrated equipment from Clockaudio Ltd. in England. But a year ago, he installed desktop speaker phones with external microphones from Polycom Inc. that were equipped with shielding. In all, the project for 100 conference rooms cost about $140,000, he said.

"It really worked," he said. "We had a major problem, and we're glad it's fixed."

In fact, Polycom found that many of its customers were noticing the same problem, and so it decided to begin upgrading all of its gear to prevent the extraneous noise. As a result, it announced recently that all of its SoundStation and VoiceStation conference phones are now equipped with advanced RF shielding technology.

To fight the problem, Polycom built in multiple layers of protection, working with microphones, speakers, digital electronics and even the cabling, according to a company white paper (download PDF). Filtering and isolation technologies, and even physical metallic shields, are also being used.

Polycom has shipped more than 2 million conference phones since 1992, said Brian Phillips, the company's senior manager of product marketing.

Phillips said Polycom's research has shown that the buzzing is worse from GSM phones than from CDMA phones. But it can come from "a whole host of electronic devices, from clock radios to car stereos," he said.

Newer phones also generate more power than older models, and there are more of them in use now, making the potential problem even worse, Phillips noted.

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