Inexpensive Telephone Conference Bridge System

Tue Jul 20 23:05:15 UTC 2004

While this isn't directly networking related, I thought any followups 
might be of interest so I'm posting here.

I'm looking to find a fairly inexpensive piece of hardware that will allow 
me to set up a easy permanent telephone conference bridge.  The purpose 
would be to allow engineers and managers to call into a fixed rotary 
number to communicate during network outages.

In my perfect world, this widget would simply take some quantity of POTs
lines in to the back (maybe 12 to 24) or less-optimum but still workable a
channelized T1 or PRI that we could figure out how to mux together
ourselves) and bridge everyone together.  A password and other things is
nice but honestly not important.  We use CENTREX systems here so getting 
POTs drops is easy while channelized services are much more difficult.

I'm trying not to do this without a super fancy (and expensive) PBX 
system.  The more turn-key the better.  Just set it up and go.

We have ideas for hacking something up with a linux box, but I'd prefer 
something a little more designed for the task.

Any ideas?

Robert Hayden
University of Wisconsin Madison