Background

Following our previous post on acoustic echo cancellation on flash calls, we got requests to improve audio quality also on conference calls that are based on flash technology. The case study that was described in the previous post dealt with audio quality for regular flash calls, and showed how to convert them to SIP in order to improve their quality. In this post we will show you how to utilize the great tools that exists in the SIP world in order to implement conference systems for flash-based calls.

Conferencing in SIP

SIP is the leading standard for VoIP communication world-wide. It has many high quality features for almost any requirement in telephony including the options to build high quality conferencing systems. In this post we will describe a very simple conference system that you can build in a click of a button. For simplicity we will continue the same case study that was described in the previous post.  As you remember, in this case study we used Elastix as our SIP PBX provider.

Conferencing with Elastix

Elastix, which uses Asterisk as its telephony infrastructure, give you the option to build conference rooms in a click of a button. All you need to do is to open the graphical web-based menu in Elastix and select PBX configuration

In the PBX configuration go to “conferences” sub-menu.

In this section you can define conference rooms that enables everyone dialing to them to automatically share their audio. As you remember from the previous post, the audio is routed to Elastix via PBXMate therefore, it will be free of acoustic echo and free of disturbing background noise. In addition, the PBXMate will take care to adjust the audio volume to a comfortable level.

Conclusion

Once you have access to the standard SIP in your VoIP system you have endless options to implement your telephony requirements. For example, if the above conference system is not powerful enough to your needs or you are looking for additional features, there are plenty of other solutions out there. If you need specific guidance, do not hesitate to contact us.