Dial-Out Access

TurboBridge offers the ability to initiate an outbound phone call to a party that you would like to invite to participate in an in-progress conference call. You must contact TurboBridge in advance to activate Dial-Out on your account. This feature can be useful in certain situations:

• You only wish to have the party participate in a portion of conference call. For example, the full group may have convened to interview job candidates or prospective vendors, who are “called upon” in turn.
• An expected participant did not arrive, perhaps because that party forgot the time or failed to entered the correct Conference ID. You can use the Dial-Out feature to solicit that person's participation.
• You do not wish to share the conference access information (dial-in number and Conference ID) with the party for privacy or security reasons. The Dial-Out feature can connect the party into the conference call without revealing the Conference ID.
• You want enhanced control over conference participation, restricted to those contacted via the Dial-Out feature.
• You want to convene a conference call, but the definitive start time is uncertain, pending the conclusion of a preceding event. You could have a group of participants “standing by” who are then invited to join via the Dial-Out feature.
• You wish to invite a participant located in an area in which TurboBridge does not offer a toll-free dial-in number. With the Dial-Out feature, there is no cost to the participant for joining the conference call. Instead, the call cost will be paid by the conference host.

How It Works.  You initiate the Dial-Out invitation in one of two ways:

1. With the Host Keypad Command *95 – you will then be prompted to enter the destination phone number.
2. By clicking the Dial-Out icon in the Host Control Panel – you will then get a pop-up box to enter the destination phone number. (You also have the option to specify an extension, the caller's name, and to automatically designate that person as a conference host.)

The person who answers the phone will hear a recorded voice announcement, "You have been invited to join a conference call. To join the conference, press 1". If the party does not press 1, the call will be terminated and the party will not be placed into the conference. There is no status information communicated to the conference host if the party doesn't join the conference, which could result from numerous factors:

• The call was not answered, or answered by voicemail.
• The phone was answered by someone other than the intended recipient.
• The call was answered by the intended recipient, but the person did not accept the invitation to join the conference.

A future enhancement will allow you to screen Dial-Out invitations; you will be able to engage in a private conversation with the Dial-Out party prior to being placed into the conference call. However, the current feature does not have this capability – there is no voice connection between the host and the called party. After entering the destination phone number via the Keypad Command *95, the host is immediately returned into the live conference. If the Dial-Out participant accepts the invitation, she will join the conference call in progress. If the Dial-Out call fails for any reason, no notification will be relayed to the host – the invited participant simply will not arrive into the conference call.

Pricing.  You will be charged 2.9¢ per minute for domestic USA participants who join your conference calls via the Dial-Out feature. The per-minute rates to connect participants in other countries are higher and vary by destination. Please contact us for rates to other destinations.

Warning  The Dial-Out feature, if enabled on your TurboBridge account, could be used to place long distance calls through your conference bridge at your expense. Anybody who knows your Conference ID and Host PIN could use the Dial-Out feature to make outbound calls to multiple phone numbers, who are connected via your conference bridge. The Dial-Out feature is NOT enabled on your account unless you contact TurboBridge with a request to enable the feature.