You would typically carry out Internet conferencing by chatting through the keyboard or speak through a microphone and even video with the particpants.

Internet Relay Chat or IRC is the simplest form of Internet Conferencing. To carry out IRC, you will need an IRC software. An example is the mIRC Internet Relay Chat client for windows which is freely available. Pacific Internet website carries an ftp site for downloading.

Do you make a lot of IDD calls? Would you like to carry out long distance overseas call without incurring overseas charges? Well, with the right software and hardware (sound card), you could carry out voice conversations through the Internet. This is the Internet Phone. Reasonable conversations can be carried out on the Internet with modem speeds greater than or equal to 28.8 Kbps. The type of audio card will determine whether the conversation will be simultaneous (Full Duplex mode).

WebChat is an audio card that implements full duplex mode and it comes with a headpiece with a microphone and Internet Phone software.

With some inexpensive software (Enhanced CU-SEEME) and inexpensive digital camera (Connectix QuickCam), you will be capable of carrying out video conferencing. There is a beta version of CU-SEEME available for FTP at FTP://cu-seeme.cornell.edu/pub/CU-SeeMe. The official site of CU-SEEME (Commercial Version) is at http://www.cu-seeme.com.

Video conferencing demands a lot of bandwidth on the Internet especially if both video and audio are carried out. Therefore, I recommend that the mininmum modem speed should be 28.8 Kbps.