Server room voice chat for class

[Lloyd Brown]

Hi. I have a somewhat odd question, but I'm hoping that someone here
may be able to give me a few ideas.

Does anyone know of a technological solution that could be used to voice
chat with a small group (10-15) people, preferably using wifi,
smart-phone apps, etc.?

Long story short, I'm probably teaching a class next semester (starting
in January) where we'll be visiting a few server rooms, and I'd love to
be able to talk to the class members, without having to yell over the
server room noise. My thought was that if all or most of them have
smart phones, someone must have done something like this before.

Currently we're considering several options, including
- Google Hangouts or Skype - Both of these are limited to 10
participants (though possibly more in a view-only mode). I'm also not
certain how much uplink bandwidth we would be able to manage, so if it
requires hitting an off-site server, it may be a problem. Also we don't
really need the
- Something VOIP driven (asterisk, etc), possibly on something small and
portable like a RPI (eg. http://www.raspberry-asterisk.org/), and just
use some kind of soft-phone on the individual devices. I'm so very
unfamiliar with this, I'm not sure if it would work or not, or how well.
It seems a little over-engineered, but that's just my initial impression.

Anything else we should be considering?
--
Lloyd Brown
Systems Administrator
Fulton Supercomputing Lab
Brigham Young University
http://marylou.byu.edu

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[Jake Mallory]

How about a FM transmitter so the students can listen via their fm radio headsets :)




http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-and-low-cost-FM-transmitter-DIY-kit/





Personally I prefer the yelling option.


- Jake

Post by Lloyd Brown
Hi. I have a somewhat odd question, but I'm hoping that someone here
may be able to give me a few ideas.
Does anyone know of a technological solution that could be used to voice
chat with a small group (10-15) people, preferably using wifi,
smart-phone apps, etc.?
Long story short, I'm probably teaching a class next semester (starting
in January) where we'll be visiting a few server rooms, and I'd love to
be able to talk to the class members, without having to yell over the
server room noise. My thought was that if all or most of them have
smart phones, someone must have done something like this before.
Currently we're considering several options, including
- Google Hangouts or Skype - Both of these are limited to 10
participants (though possibly more in a view-only mode). I'm also not
certain how much uplink bandwidth we would be able to manage, so if it
requires hitting an off-site server, it may be a problem. Also we don't
really need the
- Something VOIP driven (asterisk, etc), possibly on something small and
portable like a RPI (eg. http://www.raspberry-asterisk.org/), and just
use some kind of soft-phone on the individual devices. I'm so very
unfamiliar with this, I'm not sure if it would work or not, or how well.
It seems a little over-engineered, but that's just my initial impression.
Anything else we should be considering?
--
Lloyd Brown
Systems Administrator
Fulton Supercomputing Lab
Brigham Young University
http://marylou.byu.edu
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[John Shaver]

looks like there are Ventrilo clients for ios and android. That would work
if you could find/get a ventrilo server

Post by Lloyd Brown
Hi. I have a somewhat odd question, but I'm hoping that someone here
may be able to give me a few ideas.
Does anyone know of a technological solution that could be used to voice
chat with a small group (10-15) people, preferably using wifi,
smart-phone apps, etc.?
Long story short, I'm probably teaching a class next semester (starting
in January) where we'll be visiting a few server rooms, and I'd love to
be able to talk to the class members, without having to yell over the
server room noise. My thought was that if all or most of them have
smart phones, someone must have done something like this before.
Currently we're considering several options, including
- Google Hangouts or Skype - Both of these are limited to 10
participants (though possibly more in a view-only mode). I'm also not
certain how much uplink bandwidth we would be able to manage, so if it
requires hitting an off-site server, it may be a problem. Also we don't
really need the
- Something VOIP driven (asterisk, etc), possibly on something small and
portable like a RPI (eg. http://www.raspberry-asterisk.org/), and just
use some kind of soft-phone on the individual devices. I'm so very
unfamiliar with this, I'm not sure if it would work or not, or how well.
It seems a little over-engineered, but that's just my initial impression.
Anything else we should be considering?
--
Lloyd Brown
Systems Administrator
Fulton Supercomputing Lab
Brigham Young University
http://marylou.byu.edu
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[John Shaver]

Then again, if you're all on the same network, I don't know that it would
work well sending all that voice data over the same connection.

Maybe the fm transmitter is a good idea after all. While you're at it you
could have a silent disco in the data center.

-John

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[Mike Lovell]

Post by Lloyd Brown
Hi. I have a somewhat odd question, but I'm hoping that someone here
may be able to give me a few ideas.
Does anyone know of a technological solution that could be used to voice
chat with a small group (10-15) people, preferably using wifi,
smart-phone apps, etc.?
Long story short, I'm probably teaching a class next semester (starting
in January) where we'll be visiting a few server rooms, and I'd love to
be able to talk to the class members, without having to yell over the
server room noise. My thought was that if all or most of them have
smart phones, someone must have done something like this before.
Currently we're considering several options, including
- Google Hangouts or Skype - Both of these are limited to 10
participants (though possibly more in a view-only mode). I'm also not
certain how much uplink bandwidth we would be able to manage, so if it
requires hitting an off-site server, it may be a problem. Also we don't
really need the
- Something VOIP driven (asterisk, etc), possibly on something small and
portable like a RPI (eg. http://www.raspberry-asterisk.org/), and just
use some kind of soft-phone on the individual devices. I'm so very
unfamiliar with this, I'm not sure if it would work or not, or how well.
It seems a little over-engineered, but that's just my initial impression.
Anything else we should be considering?

how about using a smartphone as ... wait for it ... a phone? set up a
conference line of some kind and have everyone call in.

mike

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[Joel Finlinson]

Post by Mike Lovell

Post by Lloyd Brown
Hi. I have a somewhat odd question, but I'm hoping that someone here
may be able to give me a few ideas.
<snip>
Anything else we should be considering?

how about using a smartphone as ... wait for it ... a phone? set up a
conference line of some kind and have everyone call in.
mike

I've used www.freeconference.com in the past for things like this.

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[Levi Pearson]

Post by Lloyd Brown
Does anyone know of a technological solution that could be used to voice
chat with a small group (10-15) people, preferably using wifi,
smart-phone apps, etc.?

Voice chat between a small group is very popular in the gaming
community. Someone already mentioned Ventrilo (aka Vent), and the
other big player is TeamSpeak, but there's an open source alternative
called Mumble that has smartphone clients and is supposed to give a
pretty high-quality experience: http://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/Main_Page

Of course, none of that is as convenient on a smartphone as something
that's actually phone-based, so the FreeConference thing sounds pretty
appealing if you're not worried about spending cell phone minutes.

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[Wade Shearer]

Something like Voxer?

http://www.voxer.com

Post by Levi Pearson

Post by Lloyd Brown
Does anyone know of a technological solution that could be used to voice
chat with a small group (10-15) people, preferably using wifi,
smart-phone apps, etc.?

Voice chat between a small group is very popular in the gaming
community. Someone already mentioned Ventrilo (aka Vent), and the
other big player is TeamSpeak, but there's an open source alternative
called Mumble that has smartphone clients and is supposed to give a
pretty high-quality experience: http://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/Main_Page
Of course, none of that is as convenient on a smartphone as something
that's actually phone-based, so the FreeConference thing sounds pretty
appealing if you're not worried about spending cell phone minutes.
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[Michael Torrie]

Post by Wade Shearer
Something like Voxer?
http://www.voxer.com

Voxer has very high latency, and push to talk would be a bit annoying
for the instructor I'd think.

Actually, most of the solutions suggested here, including the phone
conference one would have latency that would be distracting at best (an
echo), or unusable at worst (a one second delay). Some kind of local
wlan system might work (such as mumble).

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[Tod Hansmann]

Post by Levi Pearson

Post by Lloyd Brown
Does anyone know of a technological solution that could be used to voice
chat with a small group (10-15) people, preferably using wifi,
smart-phone apps, etc.?

Voice chat between a small group is very popular in the gaming
community. Someone already mentioned Ventrilo (aka Vent), and the
other big player is TeamSpeak, but there's an open source alternative
called Mumble that has smartphone clients and is supposed to give a
pretty high-quality experience: http://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/Main_Page
+1 for Mumble. It doesn't cost anything but bandwidth unlike Vent and TS,

and can be run from a raspberry pi easily. Setup the Pi as a wifi AP to a
private network, have everyone use smartphones, and you're golden.

I'd also go for a simple VoIP server on such a thing, but setting up a sip
client can be a pain. Your call.

-Tod Hansmann

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[Lloyd Brown]

Thanks, all, for the suggestions. I had considered the FM transmitter
option, but I suspect that smartphones/laptops would be more prevalent
among the students than portable FM receivers. It's certainly an option.

Shortly after I posted originally, one of our student employees
mentioned Mumble, and I'm looking at that now. I should have known that
gaming would be the market sector to look at.

As far as using a phone conference and just calling, the trouble is that
cell service is pretty abysmal in at least one of the rooms. Then
again, the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi is pretty messy too, since the CS Dept at BYU
really doesn't seem to understand how to run Wi-Fi very well. So,
hopefully everyone will have something that can talk 5 GHz, which is
much less noisy.


Lloyd Brown
Systems Administrator
Fulton Supercomputing Lab
Brigham Young University
http://marylou.byu.edu

Post by Tod Hansmann

Post by Levi Pearson

Post by Lloyd Brown
Does anyone know of a technological solution that could be used to voice
chat with a small group (10-15) people, preferably using wifi,
smart-phone apps, etc.?

Voice chat between a small group is very popular in the gaming
community. Someone already mentioned Ventrilo (aka Vent), and the
other big player is TeamSpeak, but there's an open source alternative
called Mumble that has smartphone clients and is supposed to give a
pretty high-quality experience: http://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/Main_Page
+1 for Mumble. It doesn't cost anything but bandwidth unlike Vent and TS,

and can be run from a raspberry pi easily. Setup the Pi as a wifi AP to a
private network, have everyone use smartphones, and you're golden.
I'd also go for a simple VoIP server on such a thing, but setting up a sip
client can be a pain. Your call.
-Tod Hansmann
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