Patent ID: 8077852

Claim:
A method of establishing and controlling a conference and subconferences for a plurality of telecommunication terminals so as to reduce telecommunication costs by a conference manager, comprising the steps of: establishing the conference on a local switch by the conference manager; adding each telecommunication terminal into the conference upon each telecommunication terminal requesting addition and being geographically located with the local switch; adding each telecommunication terminal into the conference by the conference manager upon each telecommunication terminal requesting addition and being geographically remote from the local switch but being the only telecommunication terminal in its geographically location; requesting by the conference manager that each remote conference manager establish a subconference between each first set of telecommunication terminals in the conference and geographically located with each remote conference manager and extend each of subconferences to the conference; adding each telecommunication terminal requesting addition and being geographically remote from the local switch into a subconference geographically located with each telecommunication terminal; and requesting by the conference manager that a first and second remote conference manager extend a first subconference controlled by the first remote conference manager to the second subconference controlled by the second remote conference manager.