sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Conference Bridge

Does any currently-available small key system (408, for example) offer a built-in conference bridge circuit or plug-in option? I have a customer, a small law firm, who transacts lots of business via conference calls, and has been using an off-premise service to host the calls, but would rather have equipment that does it locally.

I don't want to go the Asterisk route, if possible.

Thank you for any advice you can offer.

Take a look at the DX120

The Vertical SBX does.

It's been my experience that the problem with most conference bridges happens as a result of the different volume/db/noise levels of the CO lines involved.

I am not familiar with either of the systems recommended above, so I really can't comment on them. I have had a lot of experience however with large system conference bridges and my experience has been that this is something "you don't want to try at home, boys and girls".

The GTD-4600 and the ATT 5ESS both offer built in 6 way conference bridges, and I've had a lot of experience with both of them. IMHO both of these systems worked flawlessly if no more then ONE of the conferenced parties was an outside call. As you added outside parties, the quality might - or might not - drop dramatically. But there was no way of telling in advance. Often asking particular parties to hang up and dialing them again helped. Often it didn't.

I will say that if the outside trunks were Digital (T-1) as opposed to Analog the problems decreased dramatically (but not completely).

In my role as Network Manager for the Bank of New York, I had a lot of requests for Conference Bridges and I also had a lot of grief from them.

A good off premise conference service will have the facilities to amplify or pad down the various trunks involved in the conference - and the mismatch in levels between trunks has been the cause of all the problems I've ever seen.

If the systems mentioned above can do this - then more power to them - but in my experience these settings have had to be adjusted manually, by a living breathing human being to get good results.

Admittedly my experience is somewhat dated (though my current customer is still using the 5ESS conference bridge - but only for internal calls. A "serious" conference, involving several external parties goes through a private, conference bridge.

Sam

Thank you all.

I just looked at the offerings from Optimum Voice and they claim they have a feature called "3-way conferencing." Assuming I can get an English-speaking relatively savvy person on the line, I will "axe" them what it can do and can't do. Maybe it really is conferencing, and not just plain old 3-way calling.

Wish me luck.

I use "The Conference Group" and have 9 bridges going for various uses. We pay a very low per minute rate and we have great sound quality and customer service. I haven't had a single complaint out of a single VP, and that is not easy to do!

I have no affiliation and get nothing for this. But I like their offerings. www.theconferencegroup.com

An IP office can do 64 ports of conferencing.

Forum makes a nice add on unit as well. You can usually find some refurbished units for around 500-600 bucks. I have several customers with them and they seem to be real happy with them.

DuVoice makes a small conference bridge, I think 8 port. Works great. Not expensive.

Sonexis makes a very nice conf. brige. It's high-end.