Ever hear of Integrated Data Concepts, Inc or TeleConnection.com? As we said in the sixties "read on!" Actually it was "write on!" -or was it Right On!? Just as we thought we had bottomed out in our prices this summer, with automated voice conference calls being quoted at $.09 a minute and below, a company comes along and offers ad hoc reservationless calls, or Web-reserved calls, for nada, zip, zero, at $0.0 a minute. No strings, no "zero interest this year next year or ever," no "nothing to pay until 2000-ever."

"Free" and "easy" are not words most people associate with conference calls. But Freeconference might change that. After setting up a free account at www.freeconference.com, you can schedule a conference for up to 32 callers, and designate it as a conversation, so that all participants can speak, or a one-way broadcast, in which only one caller can speak. Participants can be notified by an e-mail message that gives them the dial-in number and access code. Calls can also be arranged on the spur of the moment. There are no time limits.

The teleconferencing surge that took off after Sept. 11 as an alternative to business travel continues to grow. At Andrew Corp., for example, spending for conference calls tripled over the last year as the Orland Park company grew through acquisitions. Costs per minute are falling even as Andrew executives pick up the phone more frequently. "With this economy, we're trying to reduce travel costs," said Edgar Cabrera, Andrew's manager of communications service. "Teleconferencing is an effective alternative."

The staggering variety of free stuff available on the Internet sometimes seems to have repealed the first law of economics: There's no such thing as a free lunch. But as so often happens, the dismal science actually has it right. When it looks like you're getting something for nothing, somebody is paying, and it's often instructive to know who that is.

Los Angeles-based FreeConference, a provider of free conference calling services, said this morning that it has added web conferencing features to its lineup of services. The company, which had previously only offered the free conference calling services, said that its new SharePlus Desktop Sharing service will allow users to share any application or presentation from their desktop. The new service is currently free while the service is in beta. FreeConference is one of the companies taking advantage of FCC regulations which allow rural telcos to charge extra for connections into their network, which are used to pay for the free conference calling services.