[asterisk-users] Allowing multiple callers to join a public speaking session...?

[Ira]

At 02:11 PM 9/2/2009, you wrote:
>That said, is there any way technologically to branch/bridge a 
>normal phone line using Asterisk (or anything else), or must I have 
>some other number/service coming in?
>
>Also, I believe there was a bit of confusion with an earlier 
>post.  Although they wish to *host* the entire setup in-house, they 
>will have external callers.
>
>I'm certainly not opposed to the various proposed solutions, but 
>given the nature of the project you can understand that I don't want 
>to spend resources on items they don't absolutely need.

I think if you have the upstream bandwidth that you could get a 
single number from a VOIP provider, I pay $1.50/month or so from 
Flowroute, and pay about a penny per minute for each active 
connection. I've found they tend to severely limit the number of 
concurrent connections, I think I'm only allowed 2 or 4, but I think 
that's mainly a protection from fraud thing and that a bit of 
negotiation could get that limit raised to meet your needs. That 
means for 20 callers you're looking at an internet connection with 
adequate bandwidth, a asterisk box, I'd guess most any reasonable 
leftover computer made in the last 4 years would work and then it's 
25 cents a minute for however long the conferences last.  If you do 
that, you can get in for essentially 0 hardware cost and it's easy to 
set up and test for a $30 up front payment for a few thousand minutes.

Which makes lots of sense if the number of conference minutes is 
small, if that number gets high, you might see if a T1 is cheaper as 
you might get that with free incoming minutes. The T1 card will 
increase the hardware cost quite a bit.

The part I don't know and maybe someone else can help is how to get 
your conference sound track into Asterisk.

Ira