Phones that allow 3-way conference calls w/o dropping calls when host hangs up

[Frank86]

I've read the following on a forum

“Yealink phones can handle a 3 way conference call which is handled by the phone holding the conference. But once you hang up the device that hosted the conference the call will drop for all participants.
Other phones do this differently, Snom phones for example dial 700 once you hit the conference button so the PBX handles the call and once the device hangs up the other 2 participants can continue talking. The 3CX client can also handle this but i would recommend using the new web client and control the phone using that.”

Is that correct? If so, are Snom phones the only ones that allow to initiate a 3-way conference call without dropping the call for everyone when the host hangs up? Or are there any other 3CX-compatible phones that do this as well?

Also, if the PBX handles the call, does that negatively impact call quality for the users in the conference call?

 

[cobaltit]

Standard 3 way calls work the same on all phones. All calls originate from the SIP device itself so if you hang up, the calls drop. If you want a persistent conference call then you need to use the 3CX conference ability. From the description of the above it sounds like perhaps the 3CX template reconfigures the button on the Snom phone but that doesn't sound right and would be subject to change. The correct answer is to do things the 3CX way which is phone agnostic. Here is the guide using the windows client. Googling can find you directions for other clients:

https://www.3cx.com/user-manual/video-conferencing/

 

[cobaltit]

Sorry forgot to comment on the call quality. It's hard to say what kind of impact routing the calls through the PBX will have. It depends on a number of factors. There are times when the route between your caller(s) and PBX will be better than another option and there are times that it will be worse. But as far as the PBX hosting the conference call, that should be better in all cases than a call hosted by the SIP endpoint itself, especially if the PBX is hosted. But if you do a 3CX web conference and folks are using the web audio and not the phone audio then audio for participants should be routed via the MCU hosted by 3CX and not the PBX.

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Hi Frank

Some phones handle the conference on-device (ie Yealink) whereas other models run it using the 3CX conference server (ie. Snom)

So you can either make conferences with any supported device using the conference server, or use specifically Snom which if you hang up only ejects you from the call while the other two participants remain in the conference until they hang up.