Distributed conference bridge

Abstract

A system is disclosed for enabling communication between server resources and a wide spectrum of end-terminals to enable users access to the resources of both converged and non-converged networks via voice and/or electronically generated commands. An electronic personal assistant (ePA) incorporates generalizing/abstracting communications channels, data and resources provided through a converged computer/telephony system interface such that the data and resources are readily accessed by a variety of interface formats including a voice interface or data interface. A set of applications provide dual interfaces for rendering services and data based upon the manner in which a user accesses the data. An electronic personal assistant in accordance with an embodiment of the invention provides voice/data access to web pages, email, file shares, etc. The electronic personal assistant enables a user to transmit voice commands to a voice-based resource server to provide information accessible to the resource server. In accordance with an aspect of an embodiment of the invention, a user is authenticated by receiving vocal responses by a user to one or more requests variably selected and issued by a speaker recognition-based authentication facility. Thereafter, an application proxy is created. The application proxy acts on behalf of the authenticated authorized user. In accordance with particular aspects of the specific embodiments of the invention, a set of remotely accessed voice applications are provided. One such application comprises a personal interactive multimedia response (IMR). Each user configures a personal IMR system. In a converged network environment, the user is provided access to the IMR through a personal computer interface, web interface, instant message, e-mail, as well as a voice user interface over a telephone connection. A configurable distributed conference bridge is another potential application incorporated within the converged network architecture model of the present invention. The distributed conference bridge enables local conference resources to be utilized and incorporates external service bureau conference bridge resources when needed to supplement the internal conference bridge resources of a system.

1 - 7 . (canceled)  
     
     
         8 . A configurable conference bridge including: 
 a programmable connection engine for managing allocation of conference bridge lines in accordance with a designated connection scheme for a configurable distributed conference identifying a threshold number of connections to be established on a local conference bridge, and designating an external conference bridge; and    a central office redirection component for commanding a central office switch to redirect incoming calls identifying the configurable extensible conference bridge to the external conference bridge.    
     
     
         9 . The configurable extensible conference bridge of  claim 8  further comprising: 
 a bridge linking component for linking the local conference bridge to the external conference bridge thereby rendering a distributed conference including participants connected to both the local and external conference bridges.  
 
     
     
         10 . The configurable extensible conference bridge of  claim 8  further comprising a terminal abstraction, interposed between functional resources of a conference bridge application and end-devices, to provide the functional resources in a manner tailored to individual ones of a variety of user interfaces, including graphical and voice user interfaces, the terminal abstraction comprising: 
 a graphical user interface terminal abstraction component interposed between the functional resources and a first end-device supporting a graphical user interface, the graphical user interface terminal abstraction component transforming messages from the first end-device to a generic format expected by the functional resources, the graphical user interface terminal abstraction component further transforming messages from the functional resources to a first end-device format expected by the first end-device; and  
 a voice user interface terminal abstraction component interposed between the functional resources and a second end-device supporting a voice user interface, the voice user interface terminal abstraction component transforming messages from the second end-device to a generic format expected by the functional resources, the graphical user interface terminal abstraction component further transforming messages from the functional resources to a second end-device format expected by the second end-device.  
 
     
     
         11 . The configurable extensible conference bridge of  claim 10  wherein the functional resources comprise a configuration editor.