Several weeks ago during a conversation about what I do at work, I had someone ask me with a straight face if as an operator I plugged people in and out of their conferences. I received a good chuckle out of this perspective. Mostly because I was picturing a woman with her Victorian Updo literally plugging wires in and out of a large switch board, and knowing the next direction this conversation would take would be about party lines. But, at the same time I realized that not everyone, probably not even most of our everyday clients knows how we really function and the technology and tools we use.
I could provide you with all the technical terminology, but I can assure you that I am not completely sure what all of it means, so in an attempt not to lose everyone through this post, I will keep this simple.
At TelSpan, we are equipped with a variety of conferencing bridges. In the audio conferencing world, a bridge is a piece of technology that serves as a point of connection for multiple individuals joining a single call, handling multiple calls from multiple organizations at once. In all reality, we never have to physically touch a line for it to connect to a conference call; our bridges do all the work. The only time your line would be ‘touched’ would be when a call participant has requested assistance from an operator, or if there was difficulty with a line entering a conference. And when I say touched, I mean touched by a mouse, on a computer. All of our bridges have a physical presence on a server, but what we work with is a real-time visual composition on a computer screen. When we assist someone trying to enter a conference we literally drag and drop and icon representation of their line to their desired location and viola, they enter their conference.
TelSpan allows conference participants to connect via TDM, SIP, and VoIP connections, no plugs required. A TDM connection in this case would be a standard phone line, where a SIP connection is a line that starts from a standard phone connection and then along the way to its destination is altered. For example, if you are in Boston and need to dial into a conference call, you could dial a toll free number or dial a local Boston 857 number and not be charged long distance rates. It would be like making a call from Boston to Boston even though you would technically be calling Indianapolis, our conferencing headquarters. This same SIP principle holds true for our International Toll Free Numbers only with countries instead of cities. The most fascinating connection is VoIP. A Voice over Internet Protocol connection allows you to dial from an internet based phone and interact with our conferencing bridges and with all the other SIP and TDM connections. Who would have ever thought this was possible? But it is possible through today’s advanced technology and it happens every day.
In conclusion, I can promise you this; we have updated our hair, left the party lines to rest and are dedicated to providing you with the most up-to-date conferencing technology available.
