Patent ID: 6885740

Claim:
A conferencing method for a conference call in a telecommunications system comprising: receiving, in a local central office switch, a series of input signals from a phone of a subscriber when the subscriber requests the conference call, the phone serviced by the local central office switch and the phone having a phone number, communicating between the local central office switch and a conferencing system that the subscriber is requesting the conference call in response to said receiving, enabling a termination attempt trigger in the local central office switch for the phone in response to said communicating, connecting the phone of the subscriber to a selected bridge in the conferencing system for the conference call in response to said communicating, receiving calls to the phone number in the local central office switch from subsequent callers after enabling the termination attempt trigger, routing each subsequent caller based on the enabled termination attempt trigger to the selected bridge, connecting each subsequent caller to the conference call in the selected bridge in response to said routing, returning the phone of the subscriber to normal service when the conference call ends by disabling the termination attempt trigger.