Patent ID: 8406399

Claim:
A method for providing a dynamically configurable distributed conference bridge for use in a conference call for a set of differing end devices utilizing differing user interfaces, the conference call having a call-in phone number handled by a central office of a public switched telephone network (PSTN), the method comprising: configuring an internal conference bridge comprising specifying a threshold corresponding to a maximum number of callers to be connected to the internal conference bridge; connecting one or more callers to the internal conference bridge until the threshold has been reached; and once the threshold has been reached, automatically establishing a linkage from the internal conference bridge to an external conference bridge and automatically redirecting additional callers to the internal conference bridge exceeding the threshold to be connected to the external conference bridge through the linkage, wherein the callers connected to the internal conference bridge and the callers connected to the external conference bridge have access to identical conference call features, and wherein the automatically redirecting comprises signalling the PSTN central office to redirect callers to the call-in phone number to the external conference bridge, after which the PSTN central office redirects callers such that the redirected callers bypass a PBX handling callers using the internal conference bridge.