Conference Bridge: The Special Device Behind Conferencing

2007-03-08 10:33:40

( Telephony )



Unicast and multicast are two different types of conference devices. At any required time, you must establish the total number of synchronized users and audio streams for conferencing. Then you should be able to arrange and produce a device that would be able to support the calculated number of streams. These audio streams can be used for quite a few small conferences or for one large conference.

You can install unicast conference devices on the same computer as the call manager, or you can also install it on a different computer. What would verify the location of the Conference Bridge application are the available system resources. A conference bridge is needed for the conference feature to work in an unicast conference device. While for multicast, call manager is what is needed for the conference feature to work.

A conference bridge is a unique piece of device that is skilled to decode or interpret the media stream sent from any and every participating device and can also wisely mix the media streams together. Each participating device has a single view of the other devices in the point-to-point call that it launches to the conference bridge. It receives a media stream which can show the device’s view of all the other participating devices.

You should remember that although a conference bridge and a DSL bridge may seem to work the same, a conference bridge works differently from a DSL bridge. A DSL bridge supplies the primary Internet connection with a static IP. A conference bridge is designed to provide conferencing for all the participating devices.

A conference bridge is specified to handle particular protocols using digital data like video conferencing calls. Yet it is also equipped to handle simple voice data, which is called an audio conference bridge.

There is actually a very smart conference bridge that can mix caller types. When a video conference is being hosted, the conference bridge is equipped to make a voice caller hear a special mix of the audio from the video conference even without seeing the video.

Both unicast and multicast conference device can be arranged as an Ad-Hoc conference bridge. Ad-Hoc conference bridge works in such a way that the conference controller is the one adding the conference participants from their telephones. But then both conference devices can also be configured on a Meet-Me conference bridge wherein all users dial into a specific conference directory number.


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