Bridging Conference Calls

To comply as closely as possible with EOC's existing procedure for bridging to the regional conference calls, do the following:

Under 'General Settings', modify Asterisk Outbound Dial Command Options to reflect 'T'
Note that this is a capital T, not lower case: there is a difference. Also double check that you are modifying the Outbound dial options and not its neighbor which reflects other important dial options not pertinent to the issue under discussion.

Submit and apply changes.

Now whenever you wish to create a conference in trixbox and bridge that across to the regional conference calls:
1) dial the 800-number via a trixbox extension
2) soon as the call is connected ## blind transfer to the number of the conference in trixbox that you have created

revco offered a simple but innovative solution - that of using the ad-hoc (through the phone) conference call facility of the remote user's phone to bridge the EOC’s trixbox conference to the 800-number - a good example of how easily one can accomplish the seemingly impossible if one can think out of the box. However revco's solution has a limitation that only a person experienced is disaster management can apprehend... what if the telecom operator of the remote user has a service outage during the emergency?

The solution I propose uses the existing communication facilities of the EOC, which I assume are appropriately hardened for use during an emergency and in its immediate aftermath, and is in compliance with the EOC's procedures of conferencing.

Hopefully this easier to implement and more robust option will contribute, in some small measure, towards the preservation of the directors full head of hair!