Are we sure that it’s mobile phones causing the problem? I have attended both on mobile and landline, and haven’t dropped at all. Maybe we can look at the data of dropped calls – if the system has this information – we can see who is connected for how long, when they drop off, and correlate this to the use of mobile phones and or Skype? We have had issues with environmental noise with the use of mobile phones, but that is more a function of the location than the phone – we have also had issues with environmental noise with some people at home with children in the background, in offices with other noises in the background. I think the main issue is that the ALAC leaves everything to the teleconference. We do not do enough communication between the teleconferences, and as a result, the conference runs long. It has been dropping in length – yesterday’s ALAC meeting ran for about 1:35 (plus the 1 hour for budgeting) if we do not add the 20 minutes taken to get everyone connected. (and everyone wasn’t online – sorry again Alice) That’s getting down from the almost standard 2 hours of discussion that we have been running for the past year or so. I would love to get it down to 45 minutes like it used to be in Vittorio’s day! ;) If I had more energy it might have been even a bit faster, but I am still ill, and yesterday wasn’t a good day. One way to improve the functioning of calls is to have the reports in time so that everyone can read them and send comments. If we can have topics of concern for discussion emailed in advance, we’ll know how much discussion to expect on any topic – for example – some liaison reports engender no discussion, and then some that have been posted for a while with no reaction suddenly engender a complex debate when we get on the phone. The debate is usually important and necessary, but it throws off the timing (5 mins for all the liaison reports and then there’s an issue out of a report that’s important to most of ALAC, but it wasn’t raised in advance to book time) Call quality is also a problem, as often people have to repeat themselves multiple times as others do not hear them clearly. Interruptions are also a problem – it was brought to my attention that yesterday I interrupted Izumi, (sorry Izumi) but I didn’t hear him speaking and thought he had finished. On the other hand, there was a 6 person at one time discussion for a little while about Wendy’s travel issue before I managed to break it up. Is there any way for us to do the in person “hand raise” to indicate that we want to speak - on a teleconference? On an online tool, there’s a way, in person there’s a way. There are some people who interrupt as a habit as well. I know that we are tired – it’s terrible timing, and some issues get people hot under the collar, but please – take some time to let others finish – and please, keep comments to 1 minute or so, and don’t repeat the point over and over. I’ve left the system pretty much as I found it so far, but one way I have experienced with teleconferences in the past is : · Brief description of the topic under discussion. · Each participant gets 1 minute to make a statement on the topic. (This takes 15 mins with 15 people) – 1 minute is quite long when you have thought out what you want to say. · Decision time- consensus or vote. · Next topic. That works well for meetings where it’s purely decision making. That isn’t what our teleconferences seem to be though. If anyone has any additional suggestions or experiences that can help the team to work more productively using our virtual tools (teleconferences, wikis, email list, etc) please jump in. I think it comes down to preparation, preparation, preparation, though. We have a lot of tools, we have a lot of work (and more coming) to do. This is going to get worse and we need to get a handle on it soon. Jacqueline From: Mohammed EL Bashir [mailto:admin@isoc.sd] Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 5:08 AM To: Alan Greenberg Cc: At-Large writ small Subject: Re: [At-Large] Teleconference facility i have been participating in different teleconferences in ICANN specially ccNSO were most of the participants required call-outs to mobile phones and we did not have such problems facing ALAC teleconferences. Mobile phones is not the main problem, and i can assume most of use are coming from "unusual" locations as well where toll free numbers dose not exist . Regards, Mohamed Alan Greenberg wrote: I think "no fixed reliable telephone available" meets my criteria of "absolutely necessary". ;-) My intent was to recognize that a sizable number of our problems have been caused by mobile phones.... At 12/06/2007 02:47 PM, alice wrote: people from "unusual" locations which require call-outs (and seemingly no mechanism to know that they have dropped and need to be re-called). I think that we should outlaw the use of Skype and equivalent, and strongly discourage mobile phones unless absolutely necessary. If mobile phones are discouraged then most of us will never be able to participate in any teleconference. Please let us not forget that some of us come from countries where fixed reliable telephony has been a failure and as a result we rely on our mobile phone lines/numbers. alice _______________________________________________ ALAC mailing list HYPERLINK "mailto:ALAC@atlarge-lists.icann.org"ALAC@atlarge-lists.icann.org HYPERLINK "http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac_atlarge-lists.icann.or g"http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac_atlarge-lists.icann.o rg At-Large Official Site: HYPERLINK "http://www.alac.icann.org"http://www.alac.icann.org ALAC Independent: HYPERLINK "http://www.icannalac.org"http://www.icannalac.org -- Best Regards, Mohamed El Bashir President, Sudan Internet Society .SD Domain Name Registry Vice President, Communications & Out-Reach "African Top Level Domains Organization-AfTLD" ICANN ccNSO Council Member ICANN ALAC Committee Member Personal Web : HYPERLINK "http://www.mbash.net"www.mbash.net ""Life lies not in never falling, but in rising when you fall." 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