Distributed audio conferencing system

摘要

A conference call system with a plurality of endpoints, a switch and a media mixer is disclosed. One or more entities in the conference call system comprise part or whole of a feature module. The feature module executes various telephony features like adjusting the volume of a selected participant in a conference call, initiating a sidebar with a participant wherein other participants cannot hear the conversation of the participants in the sidebar, putting a selected call participant on hold from an endpoint other than the selected participant's endpoint, disconnecting a selected participant from an endpoint other than the selected participant's endpoint and transferring a call with two or more participants to a new participant's endpoint.

主权项

1. An apparatus for facilitating a conference call between a first participant on a first endpoint, a second participant on a second endpoint and a third participant on a third endpoint, the apparatus comprising:
a volume controller configured to receive an identification of a selected participant from the first endpoint, the selected participant is one from a group of the second participant and the third participant; a media mixer determination module, communicatively coupled to the volume controller, configured to determine a media mixer for the conference call, the media mixer configured to mix media from a plurality of call participants and adjust volume of media from the selected participant before mixing the adjusted media from the selected participant with media from other call participants, wherein the media mixer is included in one or more of the first endpoint, the second endpoint and the third endpoint; a volume adjuster module, communicatively coupled to the volume controller, configured to receive the identification from the volume controller and transmit a volume adjustment signal to the media mixer; a supervisor hunt controller configured to receive a request for a supervisor associated with the first participant; and a supervisor determination module, communicatively coupled to the supervisor hunt controller, configured to receive an identification for the first participant, query a supervisor database and determine the supervisor based on the received identification of the first participant and based on one or more of a seniority of the supervisor, an expertise of the supervisor, or other characteristic stored in the supervisor database, the supervisor database storing information about various supervisors.