Method for solving the music-on-hold problem in an audio conference

A telecommunications conferencing system comprising:

• a merging and/or summing subsystem for establishing a conference call among a plurality of audio links;
• and
• means for recognizing and preventing audio signals transmitted on an individual one of said audio links from being transmitted on the other audio links when said audio signals are music-on-hold signals, said audio link upon which music-on-hold signals appear being an offending audio link, said means for recognizing and preventing comprising a music detector for detecting music-on-hold signals transmitted on said audio links and a central processing unit operable to direct said merging and/or summing subsystem to stop combining audio transmitted on said offending audio link with audio transmitted on said other audio links, thereby temporarily disconnecting the offending audio link from the conference call;
• and
• a message generator capable to send a message on said offending audio link, said message including notification that said offending link has been disconnected from the conference call due to music-on-hold.

A telecommunications conferencing system comprising:

• a merging and/or summing subsystem for establishing a conference call among a plurality of audio links;
• means for recognizing and preventing audio signals transmitted on an individual one of said audio links from being transmitted on the other audio links when said audio signals are music-on-hold signals, said audio link upon which music-on-hold signals appear being an offending audio link;
• and
• means for providing a graphical user interface through terminal equipment connected to at least one of said audio links, wherein said graphical user interface includes a graphical representation of each said audio link, a graphical representation of the sound level of audio received from each said audio link, and a graphical representation of an anti-hold button associated with each said audio link, each said graphical representation of an anti-hold button being operable, when selected, to signal the audio conference bridge to activate said means for recognizing and preventing audio signals transmitted on the audio link associated with said selected graphical representation of said anti-hold button to prevent the audio link from being transmitted to said other conferees.

A method for use in an audio conference bridge which is operative to establish a conference call among a plurality of conferee locations, the method comprising the steps of:

• recognizing and preventing music-on-hold signals emanating from at least one of said conferee locations from being transmitted through the audio conference bridge to the other conferee locations during the conference call and identifying said at least one of said conferee locations from which said music-on-held signals emanate as an offending conferee location;
• preventing audio emanating from said offending conferee location from being combined onto audio channels through which audio is sent from the audio conference bridge to the other conferee locations, thereby disconnecting the offending conferee location from the conference call;
• and
• sending a message to said offending conferee location, said message including a notification that said offending conferee location has been temporarily disconnected from the conference call due to music-on-hold.