Home-brewed conference calling

[Dave42]

Hey everyone.

Our company has several remote offices that call in once a week for a sales meeting. After spending way too much money on conference calling services, I'd like to try and find a way that I can use the norstar to conference in more that two other parties at a time.

I've heard of Forum Communications Confer III -- it seems like a really nice conference bridge that interfaces to the norstar through ASMs, but the price tag is fairly hefty.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to connect several lines, maybe through an ASM, together? I don't need any of the special features you normally find on conference bridges (such as muting, join/leave notifications, etc)... and I'd even be willing to shell out a little dough if there's a product that will do what I want it to do without breaking the bank.

Thanks all...

David

 

[cowenby]

How many parties are you trying to conference? Your biggest problemin conferencing is going to be signal loss.

Have you checked on the Internet for a company that'll handle conference calls cheaper? We did and now pay only a fraction of what we used to.

Even if you purchase a conference bridge, you're still going to have to pay for the talk paths. If you can't save enough money to pay for the bridge in 12-18 months, you're probably better off not buying one.

 

[Dave42]

At most, five parties. We shopped around and got a pretty low rate, but the problem is that we tend to use it more than we should....

I guess we still would have to pay for long distance, eh? But I'd still like to find a solution...?

 

[phonefella]

How many lines do you have and how many people are you trying to conference?

 

[Arr]

Dave,
Take a look at IP phone conferencing. It will be a seperate phone spun off from a PC. The idea is to use ADSL or High Speed cable.

PhM