Asterisk as an Conference Bridge Solutions
In “Meet Me” conferences, you give participants a telephone number and extension to dial. This rings into a virtual conference room that allows up to several dozen people to participate in a two-way conversation. This is the easiest way to deal with conference calls because it is analogous to walking in or out of a real conference room. People simply call 800-nnn-xxxx extension xyz at the appointed time, and can come and go as they please.
If your telephone system doesn’t have built-in meet me conferencing, there are a couple of ways you can do this. if you conduct a lot of conference calls, the toll charges can add up , in which case you might want to buy your own conference bridge
The conference bridge can be accessed in one of several ways depending on the type of telephone system you have, whether it supports voice over IP, and how easily it can be expanded:
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 Internal T1/PRI - here you connect an internal T1 or ISDN Primary Rate circuit from the PBX directly to the conference bridge. This is a good option if your PBX is expandable, but does not support VoIP. This way you don’t have to order a local loop T1 from the local phone company, which will cost you several hundred dollars per month.
- Connect direct to public telephone network - order one or more local loop T1/PRI circuits from your phone company, connect them directly to the conference bridge. This is a good option if your PBX is not expandable. The downside is you have to pay for more local telephone service.
- Connect to PBX via Voice over IP. If your PBX or local telephone provider supports SIP, H.323 or IAX voice over IP service, you can route calls to Asterisk via your LAN/WAN. This is the best option if it’s available as you can eliminate the need for T1 interface cards in the Asterisk box, as well as expansion cards for your PBX.
Conference Bridge Connected to PBX
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