Conference Bridge
(1-telephone) A telecommunications facility or service which permits callers from several diverse locations to be connected together for a conference call. The conference bridge contains electronics for amplifying and balancing the loudness of each speaker in a conference call so everyone can hear each other and speak to each other. Background noises are suppressed and typically only the current two or three loudest speakers' voices are retransmitted to other participants by the bridge, while a speaker's own voice audio is not sent back to that speaker to avoid audio feedback, echo or "squealing" self-oscillation. (2- text) A facility to receive the character codes from the keyboards of multiple participants and retransmit this text to the display or printer of all participants in the conference. First used with electromechanical teletypewriters for private networks of automobile parts suppliers. Modern implementations on the Internet are typically called a "chat room."