[Asterisk-Dev] Basic Conferencing from IAX2, other VoIP Channels

[Shannon Mitchell]

I agree.  Compared to other commercial systems the meetme function is a
pain in the ass. It would be nice to have hot/cold transfers to go along
with it.

On Wed, 2004-06-02 at 15:08, Steven Sokol wrote:
> Asterisk's MeetMe is powerful and flexible, but sometimes you just want to
> do an old-fashioned basic conference from the client, without having to
> transfer everybody into a conference room.  This is pretty common
> functionality on most office phone systems.
> 
> Scenario:
> 
> 1.  You (party A) are on an active call with party B.
> 2.  You decide to add in another party (C).
> 3.  You key the CONF button on your business set.
> 	- Party B gets MOH or silence.
> 	- Party B's appearance on your phone goes to the HELD state.
> 	- You get new dial-tone on a new appearance
> 4.  You dial the number for party C.
> 5.  Party C answers and you communicate briefly.
> 6.  You press the CONF key again to establish the conference
> 	- The bridging takes place in the PBX/KSU
> 	- Party B is pulled out of MOH-land and added to the new call
> 	- Party B's appearance returns to the ACTIVE state
> 
> Now you are conferenced.  Both call appearances show active.  You can even
> follow the same set of steps to conference in another user if you have
> additional appearances on your set.
> 
> In Asterisk using most VoIP phones (soft or hard) this scenario does not
> play out.  You wind up transferring party A into the MeetMe, calling party B
> and transferring them into the MeetMe, then dialing into the MeetMe
> yourself.
> 
> This is further complicated by the fact that any given static MeetMe may or
> may not already be occupied by others doing the same thing.  Dynamic MeetMes
> make this a bit more flexible, but there's little documentation to the
> dynamic feature.
> 
> Is there an elegant way to execute dynamic conferencing in Asterisk?  Can
> this be done without building conferencing logic into the client UA?  If so,
> how?
> 
> If not (which I think is the case), how do we add this in?  I have a number
> of clients using my IAX Phone who are not really happy about having to jump
> through hoops to handle spontaneous conferences.
> 
> I would be happy to _try_ to code the solution into IAX2 (both chan_iax2 and
> libiax2) if somebody can tell me where to begin.  I would think there has to
> be some way to add in an IAX2 command to merge two calls or to command
> Asterisk to bridge the calls at the server.
> 
> Also, is there a way execute such a conference from SIP, MGCP, H323, or
> other protocols?  If so, who wants to implement it?
> 
> Any thoughts would be appreciated.  Apologies in advance if I missed some
> really simple way of doing this.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Steve
> 
> Steven Sokol
> Owner/Manager
> Sokol & Associates, LLC
> 
> Phone:  816.822.1807
> IaxTel: 700.613.9004
> Web:    http://www.sokol-associates.com
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Shannon Mitchell, SCSA, SCJP               shannonm at kvinet.com
Kanawha Valley Internet                    www.kvinet.com
300 Technology Drive Suite 202             South Charleston, WV 25309
Voice: 304 720-1807                        Fax: 304 720-1830