Can't understand people with accents on conference calls....

Long time no post! Anyway, I currently work from home and the company I work for has many people who have thick accents. I can understand them fine when I'm in the office most of the time, but on conference calls it becomes very difficult. Part of that is a result of me using a normal cordless phone. I can hear and understand other people fine but with the accents it is very difficult. My question is, how do I solve this? Here's my current setup:

1. Land line with the phone company (not an internet phone).
2. phillips se450 cordless phone

What is my best option in terms of clearly understanding people. The upstairs where I use the phone does not have a phone jack so it would need to connect wirelessly to the base downstairs like it currently does. Is there a 2.5mm headset that would fix the issue? Is there a way to hook the cordless phone up to speakers and a separate microphone, or talk to the headset and listen through speakers? Thanks!

Initially I was going to recommend a plantronics headset: http://www.plantronics.com/us/product/s12 which is what I got after I found that I was on long calls with various health care entities and required speaking with multiple people. In the past I had issues with the cordless phones. Even at 2.4 GhZ frequency, I was always ending up with some static or intereference of some kind. So I resorted to using a corded one. Because you are on a cordless phone, I think it's going to be very difficult to get much clarity. Unfortunately, my recommendation is to get a 25,50 or 100 ft phone cable and lead it into your room. Even if you got a headset for the phone, the issue is the cordless phone itself. No headset even with an amplifier on the headset, because the quality coming to the wiireless handset is the issue, the headset won't really improve much.

Glad I'm not the only one with this problem. I can't people with accents in person either.

There is no solution though. The only thing you can do is ask them to use a better mic. I do all my conference calls over Google Talk and use a condenser mic, which is good for other people hearing me but doesn't so anything in the reverse direction.

Okay thanks for the feedback! I just scheduled to have a tech come out. I actually have a telephone jack right where I want it but it's not connected. My phone company offers a flat rate of $99 to install additional jacks, I don't think that's too bad.

So after I get this jack installed, you would recommend a plantronics headset, the S12 specifically? Also, my plan is to leave the cordless at my desk that currently has no jack and connects wirelessly to the main base, then plug the S12 headset directly into the wall, that will work right (I'm thinking this won't work now that I'm checking out the headset)? If I do need to plug the headset into a corded phone, what phone would you recommend? I have a cheap one I can use, the quality of the corded phone doesn't really matter right?

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Originally Posted by ImaNihilist

Glad I'm not the only one with this problem. I can't people with accents in person either.

There is no solution though. The only thing you can do is ask them to use a better mic. I do all my conference calls over Google Talk and use a condenser mic, which is good for other people hearing me but doesn't so anything in the reverse direction.

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Yea that's definitely an issue. They all huddle around a conference call phone in a conference room and speak at the same time lol.

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Originally Posted by Paladyr

Okay thanks for the feedback! I just scheduled to have a tech come out. I actually have a telephone jack right where I want it but it's not connected. My phone company offers a flat rate of $99 to install additional jacks, I don't think that's too bad.

So after I get this jack installed, you would recommend a plantronics headset, the S12 specifically? Also, my plan is to leave the cordless at my desk that currently has no jack and connects wirelessly to the main base, then plug the S12 headset directly into the wall, that will work right (I'm thinking this won't work now that I'm checking out the headset)? If I do need to plug the headset into a corded phone, what phone would you recommend? I have a cheap one I can use, the quality of the corded phone doesn't really matter right?

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Well if you are on the phone a lot, then yes I would specifically recommend that headset. I have the set since 2007. This is the same set - no parts were replaced - including the battery. You can't just plug it into the wall jack. It needs to be connected to a corded phone. You don't need a really nice one. My phone I have is:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ms_ohs_product

or you could just get a cheaper one:

http://www.amazon.com/AT-CL2939-Cord...s=corded+phone

It's rather easy to configure. There are pictures on the back of the headset base which tells you what plugs into where.

It feels flimsy, however, it does the job and as long as you don't step on the mic, or have animals that chew up the cords, it should last you forever.

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Originally Posted by kujoe2002

Well if you are on the phone a lot, then yes I would specifically recommend that headset. I have the set since 2007. This is the same set - no parts were replaced - including the battery. You can't just plug it into the wall jack. It needs to be connected to a corded phone. You don't need a really nice one. My phone I have is:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ms_ohs_product

or you could just get a cheaper one:

http://www.amazon.com/AT-CL2939-Cord...s=corded+phone

It's rather easy to configure. There are pictures on the back of the headset base which tells you what plugs into where.

It feels flimsy, however, it does the job and as long as you don't step on the mic, or have animals that chew up the cords, it should last you forever.

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So I got the S12, and it doesn't work with my corded phone. On compatibility settings 1-3 I can hear people but they can't hear me. On 4 they can hear me but I can't hear them. On 5 and 6 nothing works. I'm guessing the problem is that I have it hooked up to a corded phone that has the numbers on the handset rather than on the base of the phone. Is the S12 not compatible with phones like that? I check around and no one near me has a phone I can plugin and try.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Paladyr

So I got the S12, and it doesn't work with my corded phone. On compatibility settings 1-3 I can hear people but they can't hear me. On 4 they can hear me but I can't hear them. On 5 and 6 nothing works. I'm guessing the problem is that I have it hooked up to a corded phone that has the numbers on the handset rather than on the base of the phone. Is the S12 not compatible with phones like that? I check around and no one near me has a phone I can plugin and try.

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What corded phone are you talking about? If you are talking about a phone like:

http://www.amazon.com/AT-Corded-Phon...s=corded+phone

Then yes, I believe that will be an issue. That is why I recommended the ones I listed.

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Originally Posted by kujoe2002

What corded phone are you talking about? If you are talking about a phone like:

http://www.amazon.com/AT-Corded-Phon...s=corded+phone

Then yes, I believe that will be an issue. That is why I recommended the ones I listed.

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Okay thanks!