The present invention automatically establishes a connection to each
participant of a teleconference. Conference call set up and connect
information may be provisioned in a variety of ways, including via a
menu-based Dual Tone Multiple Frequency (DTMF) mechanism and via a form
or formatted file sent from a subscriber. Additionally, a conference
participant is not tied to one telephone number or other such address.
The present invention queries a profile database to determine a
conference participant's current location before connecting the
participant to the conference. Therefore a conference participant who
happens to be working from home on a particular day need only update one
database, and any conferences in which the telecommuting worker is
expected to participate will automatically be connected to the worker's
home telephone number, rather than the worker's office telephone number.