Ups and downs with phone conferences

The joy of attending phone conference increases when in the conference room

• an old, not conference-ready phone without any noise cancellation is used,
• a laptop with its fan and a person frequently typing is placed next to the phone,
• everybody else is trying to sit as far as possible away from the phone,
• everybody is doing side conversations,
• and the person in charge is mumbling softly into the phone.

This can be topped by another attendee using an amplifier shouting into the phone. Now, if you had a headset on and had raised the volume to understand the quiet, mumbling person, your ear quits for a while and you hear as much as the two fellows in this IBM video. How are your phone conferences?