Teleconferencing on the cheap [Hands On]

As a telecommuter, I love the Internet, for obvious reasons. Strangely, though, the teleconferencing system that IEEE Spectrum editors have long been using is just one step up from a speakerphone. It only provides audio??and crummy audio at that. As a consequence, every editorial meeting I "attend" is a painful experience: Imagine trying to pick out a single voice at a noisy restaurant, in the dark, while wearing earplugs.