Method and apparatus for providing telephone conference bridging within a residential gateway

摘要

To set up a conference call which includes two, three or more participants, when the participating residential gateways (RGs) lack the necessary capability, a call agent designates a capable residential gateway RG, such as an embedded or stand-alone multi-media terminal adapter (eMTA or MTA) or a cable modem voice (CM), to serve as a residential conference mixer (RCM). The call agent routes outbound voice traffic from the participating RGs to the RCM, which mixes the traffic from the RGs participating in the conference call and directs the mixed voice traffic to the participating RGs. The call agent monitors the RGs for information useful to determine availability for conferencing.