Recently, I have been testing a range of free collaboration tools (Microsoft's Shared View (public wait list), Live Messenger, Google Docs, Yugma, Skype and Unyte). I have also previously used paid services such as Webex, Live Meeting and Adobe Connect.

I have found the three critical aspects needed for a good online meeting with say 4 attendees to be:

1. Crystal clear audio and reliable voice communications
2. The ability to webcam with everyone at the start of a call and for key discussion points
3. A flexible content collaboration tool that can be used for presenting, editing and joint brainstorming

Whilst many free tools meet some of these challenges, few get close to a complete solution. And when you try to use a mix of tools then bandwidth needs rise and the ability of each tool to manage available bandwidth fails!

On the basis that one of the participants may have limited bandwidth - say 500 effective kbps- then I have found it unrealistic to try and run Voip, Webcams and Content sharing at the same time.

To overcome the bandwidth constraint, my recent online meetings have tended to reserve bandwidth for content collaboration and support calls with audio conferencing being provided by a dial up service (for the UK) like www.all-call.com.

We still have a little way to go before bandwidth and services is ubiquitous!