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Telephones and Telephone Conferencing

Forwarding Campus Telephone Calls

Using a service called Extension to Cellular (or EC500), you can receive calls placed to your on-campus landline phone number on your cell phone. When someone calls your campus phone, both your campus phone and your cell phone ring, and you can answer either one. You can turn the service off and on to fit your work patterns. EC500 is useful for many reasons; in the context of telecommuting it allows you to work from home and immediately receive calls placed to your work phone.

Extension to Cellular is a for-fee service managed by CIT. Please check CIT's Extension to Cellular web site for details, costs, a FAQ and more.

Telephone Conferencing

Just because you are telecommuting, it doesn't mean there aren't meetings to attend and people to talk to you. Traditional telephone conferencing is the meeting method of choice when:

  • Voice communication is sufficient.
  • There is an expectation for high-quality, professional service (no loss, degradation, or interruption of the signal as may occur with data-based services).
  • Quick, on-demand set up is important.
  • Visuals like PowerPoint slides aren't necessarily crucial to the meeting; the focus is on talking, not seeing text, images, or people.

The telephone conferencing approach you choose is based on whether you are on or off campus and the number of people to be included in the call.

What service should I choose for making a conference call?
There are multiple ways to set up a telephone conference depending on where you are when you place the call and how many people you want to include.
  • During a campus emergency, the best solution is to use a CIT-recommended externally hosted conference calling service that doesn’t depend on Cornell University telephone service being viable. See Commercial Providers.
  • It also makes sense to use a CIT-recommended external conference calling service if you are inexperienced using Cornell’s office phones for conferencing. For example, if one person does not pick up, do you know how to get rid of the busy tone so that you can proceed with the call?
How many people are on the conference call?
 Where are you when you place the conference call?
 
On campus
 Off campus
3 people (you and 2 more)
 Use features on your office phone to add people to your call
 Your personal land line or cell phone provider may offer three-way calling as part of your standard service or you may be able to add it for a fee. Alternatively, use an externally hosted large conference calling service.
Up to 6 people (you and up to 5 more)
 Same as above if you are comfortable adding multiple callers. Otherwise, use externally hosted large conference calling service.
 Use an externally hosted large conference calling service.
More than 6 people (large conference calls)
 Use an externally hosted large conference calling service. Use an externally hosted large conference calling service.

Notes about externally hosted large conference calls

  • For hosting large conference calls, CIT recommends the companies listed under Commercial Providers on the conference calling website.
  • Recommendations for additional external service providers are being assembled and will be linked here as soon as they are available.

Adding the web to a conference call

Some external conference calling services provide a web site for sharing documents during a conference call. You may be able to do this with the services CIT is getting ready to recommends in the future. However, if your meeting is heavily dependent on visuals, you may want to consider web conferencing instead.