The virtual explosion in growth of multi-national companies has led to a dramatic increase in international telecommunications traffic. A significant, and ever increasing part of such traffic is devoted to conference calls, i.e., calls involving three or more parties. The manner in which such conference calls are arranged or initiated depends, among other factors, upon the type of terminal equipment available to the participants. Thus, if one of the participants has a two-line (or multi-line) capability, that party can place one call, put it on hold, place a second (or subsequent) call, and then bridge the two (or more) calls. If two or more participants have the same capability, then one participant can make all of the calls, or several participants can add one or more additional individuals to the conference, thereby in effect sharing the responsibility for initiating the conference among the parties.
The choice of which approach to take is not today made with any degree of consistency nor with any consideration of the advantages that may be obtained if one conference initiation approach is selected over another. In particular, it may turn out that the cost of making a call from point A to point B is less than the cost of making the same call from point B to point A, simply because of the time zone differences at those locations and the fact that the cost of making a call is time sensitive (e.g., evening or night rates are typically cheaper than day rates). "Direction dependent" rates are almost always encountered when international long distance calls are involved. It may also turn out that more (or better quality) circuits are available for telecommunications traffic destined for a foreign country as opposed to the circuits connecting the same endpoints but originating from locations outside of this country.
The situation described above is also true with respect to conference calls made using a conference facility (such as the Alliance Conference Bridge Service available from AT&T) that is located within the telecommunications network and controlled by the telecommunications provider, rather than by using customer premise equipment. In instances in which network based conference bridges are used, there are nevertheless choices that should be made to improve economy and efficiency: which participant should set up the call, which bridge location should be selected as a dominant location, what time the call should be placed, and so on.