A telephone call in which the calling party wishes to have more than one called party listen in to the audio portion of the call is a conference call. The conference calls are usually designed to allow the called party to participate on the call, or the call may be set up so that the called party merely listens into the call and thus cannot speak. A conference call is often referred to as an Audio Tele-Conference (ATC).
In many cases, conference calls can be designed so that the calling party calls the other participants and usually adds them to the call. Another way to design a conference call is to make the participants able to call into the conference call themselves. This is done by dialing into a special telephone number that connects to a "conference bridge". "Conference bridge" means a specialized type of equipment that links telephone lines.
The conference bridge is usually maintained by a specialized service provider and most companies are using these services. The providers provide the phone numbers and PIN codes that participants dial to access the conference call or meeting.
For most customers, there is a service called three-way calling available on their home or office phone lines, usually at an extra charge. The three way call is usually designed so that the first person one wishes to talk to is dialed. Then a button called "the Hook Flash" is pressed and the other person's phone number is dialed. The flash button is pressed again while phone is ringing and these actions will put the three peoples together. This option is designed to allow callers to add a second outgoing call to a call that is already connected.
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