FreeConferenceCall.com
Type of site
Teleconferencing
OwnerDavid Erickson
URLfreeconferencecall.com
CommercialYes
LaunchedOctober 26, 2001

FreeConferenceCall.com is a website founded in 2001 in Long Beach, California. The company is one of the largest providers of conference call services online.

History

The domain FreeConferenceCall.com was registered with GoDaddy on October 26, 2001, for $10 by David Erickson, founder and CEO of the Long Beach, California-based company.[1][2][3] Erickson's original plan was only to offer freeware and then promote additional services at a cost.[3] For the first few years since the website founding, Erickson was the only employee, performing all website coding, customer relations, and marketing functions.[4]

Beginning in 2005, the company formally generated revenue by entering into profit-sharing agreements with local exchange carriers (LECs) in rural areas located in the Midwestern United States, such as Farmers Telephone based in Riceville, Iowa.[3][5] The LECs were permitted to charge interexchange carriers such as AT&T Wireless, Verizon Communications, and Sprint to connect incoming calls to conference call numbers and would split the revenue generated from this increased traffic with FreeConferenceCall.com.[3][6][7] With the explosion of the first free conference provider post 9/11, rural LECS were receiving hundreds of millions of minutes per month. That led to March 2007, several long-distance service providers began blocking access to these phone numbers alleging that the local exchanges were violating several laws and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) guidelines.[3][8][9][10] However by May 2007, "the blocking largely ceased after a stern prod by the Federal Communications Commission", according to the Associated Press.[7] In June 2007, the FCC formally barred the interexchange carriers from blocking conference calls.[3] FreeConferenceCall.com's business model was later indirectly regulated when the FCC enacted the Connect America Fund in 2012, ending the exemption for telephone companies in rural areas and requiring the LECs to operate like any other U.S. telephone company.[11]

The FreeConferenceCall.com hold music, "Sunshine Soul" by "New York Jazz Ensemble", was licensed with Warner Chappell Production Music in 2004 and has remained the same throughout the company's history. In the late 2000s, the company tried to change the music but under intense backlash from users instead decided to offer the option to change it to a song of the customer's choice. "Sunshine Soul" has been the subject of several remixes and parodies on YouTube and SoundCloud.[12]

FreeConferenceCall.com started "Santa's Hotline", a toll-free telephone line where children can call to leave a message for Santa Claus.[13] The phone line was opened in 2010 but went viral on social media in 2015 after it was mentioned on Fox Business. During that year, the company said it received calls with nine million messages from children leaving their holiday gift wish lists.[14] The phone number remains active with alternate numbers in several countries and languages.[15]

By September 2011, FreeConferenceCall.com employed 60 people and was responsible for 20 million calls per month.[16] That year FreeConferenceCall.com moved to a one-story building, its current 10,000-square-foot headquarters, located on Long Beach Traffic Circle.[4][17]

As of 2016, the company employs more than 150 people and, in September of that year, opened satellite offices in Signal Hill, California, to accommodate its customer service staff of about 45 people.[18]

References

  1. ↑ Murphy Jr, Bill (April 7, 2016). "How FreeConferenceCall.com Built a Giant Business Out of a $10 Domain Name". Inc.com. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  2. ↑ Taylor, Alan (December 30, 2017). "889 1% of Humanity Uses This Bootstrapped Tool, $100m+ Revenue - Podcast". Entrepreneur. Archived from the original on July 29, 2019. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Searcey, Dionne (October 4, 2007). "How 2 Guys' Iowa Connection Took Big Telecoms for a Ride". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  4. 1 2 Bennett, Sarah (September 12, 2012). "FreeConferenceCall.com Owner Built Long Beach Company From Scratch • Long Beach Post News". Long Beach Post. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  5. ↑ DeMarrais, Kevin G. (October 19, 2007). "Conference calls made cheap". The Record. pp. B3.
  6. ↑ Berlind, David (March 28, 2007). "Freeconferencecall.com accuses carriers that are blocking its service of foul play". ZDNet. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  7. 1 2 "AT&T, Iowa Phone Companies Go Toe-to-Toe". The Oklahoman. May 8, 2007. Archived from the original on July 29, 2019. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  8. ↑ Cheng, Jacqui (March 19, 2007). "AT&T/Cingular blocks cellular customers from free conference call services". Ars Technica. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  9. ↑ Berlind, David (March 20, 2007). "Reminder from AT&T: Your AT&T/Cingular-provisioned cell phone is not for conference calls". ZDNet. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  10. ↑ James S., Granelli (April 5, 2007). "Phone firms hung up over fees". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  11. ↑ Preimesberger, Chris (July 6, 2015). "How FreeConferenceCall.com Climbed to Collaboration Heights". eWEEK. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  12. ↑ Carley, Brennan (September 25, 2014). "The Wondrous Life (and Deathlessness) of FreeConferenceCall.com's Hold Music". Spin. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  13. ↑ Overdeep, Meghan (December 12, 2018). "Forget Stamps, You Can Reach Santa Claus By Phone". Southern Living. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  14. ↑ Grobaty, Tim (November 29, 2016). "Millions of kids leave voicemails with wish lists on Santa's Hotline". Press Telegram. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  15. ↑ Walbert, Meghan Moravcik (December 13, 2018). "Call Santa and Leave Him a (Free) Message". Lifehacker. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  16. ↑ Rodriquez, Salvador (September 18, 2011). "FreeConferenceCall.com founder helped by the perfect name". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  17. ↑ Zonkel, Phillip (April 6, 2014). "Long Beach-based freeconferencecall.com an industry leader". Press Telegram. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  18. ↑ Edwards, Andrew (September 15, 2016). "Long Beach-based FreeConferenceCall.com expands with Signal Hill office". Press Telegram. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
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