Other Uses of Conference Resources

System features such as call intrusion, call recording and silent monitoring all use conference resources for their operation. On IP500 V2 systems, each Embedded Voicemail call in progress also reduces the conference capacity.

Automatically Ending Conferences

The behavior for the system automatically ending a conference varies as follows:

• A conference remains active until the last extension or trunk with reliable disconnect leaves. Connections to voicemail or a trunk without reliable disconnect (for example an analog loop-start trunk) will not hold a conference open.

• The Drop External Only Impromptu Conference setting controls whether a conference is automatically ended when the last internal party exits the conference.

Analog Trunk Restriction

In conferences that include external calls, only a maximum of two analog trunk calls are supported. This limit is not enforced by the system software.

Recording Conferences

If call recording is supported, conference calls can be recorded just like normal calls. Note however that recording is automatically stopped when a new party joins the conference and must be restarted manually. This is to stop parties being added to a conference after any "advice of recording" message has been played.

IP Trunks and Extensions

Conferencing is performed by services on the system's non-IP interface. Therefore a voice compression channel is required for each IP trunk or extension involved in the conference.

Call Routing

A short code routing calls into a conference can be used as an Incoming Call Route destination.

Conference Tones

The system provides conference tones. These will be either played when a party enters/leaves the conference or as a regularly repeated tone. This is controlled by the Conferencing Tone (System | Telephony | Tones & Music) option.