Getting people together from different locations for a conference call doesn't have to be a painstaking process. You can use a conference call bridge to allow several individuals across multiple conference sites to share information and video in real time.

For companies doing more than six hours of conference calls per month, a conference call bridge can reduce hefty toll charges. Purchasing a bridge for your business is expensive, around $10,000 to $20,000 for the equipment and hundreds to thousands of dollars per phone line. You can request a separate recording device for archiving conferences for future playback, or use your own in-house recording equipment.

You can rent a bridge from a service provider to help alleviate the costs, but only if you use conference calls sparingly. Whether you buy or purchase, your participants are responsible for long distance charges on their end.

There are two ways to connect using a conference call bridge: dial-in and dial-out. Dial-in provides codes for you and your guests. You simply provide participants with the date, time, and access codes to join the conference call. With dial-out, you have additional flexibility to invite participants to join at the last minute. With both options, all participants are muted and can't communicate with each other. Your visitors wait until everybody has connected to the bridge and then you indicate when you begin.