Merge 4th and 5th Call for a Conference

Question

Level 3

604 points

Merge 4th and 5th Call for a Conference

Hello,

I am not able to merge any more than three calls together (including myself). When I attempt to, I have the conference already set up and am talking to the fourth person with their name beneath "Conference". However, when I tap the Merge button it bumps together for a split second but then the names separate again. I thought this was normal but then I read this: http://support.apple.com/kb/TA38608?viewlocale=en_US

How do you merge five calls together like the article says?

Thanks!

MacBook Pro 15" 2.4 GHz, iPhone 3G, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on May 13, 2009 3:37 PM

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Answer 1

Jason L

Community Specialist

May 13, 2009 5:53 PM in response to Sam M.

Hi Sam,

You would merge the 5 calls just like it says in the article you linked.
+2. Tap Add Call and make another call. The first call is put on hold. If you want, you can talk on the second line privately before merging the calls.+
+3. Tap Merge Calls. The calls are merged onto one line and everyone can hear each other.+
+4. Repeat steps two and three to add more calls to the conference.+

Contact AT&T Customer Support at : 1-800-331-0500 and have them verify your account is setup correctly. Call them from another line, If possible, so you can test the resolution.

-Jason

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Answer 2

Sam M. Author

Level 3

604 points

May 13, 2009 7:25 PM in response to Jason L

Hi Jason,

I did follow those steps however it still does not work. I did contact both AT&T and they said my account was set up fine and capable to add as many simultaneous callers as the iPhone will support. I contacted AppleCare and they said this is also possible and confirmed it as they did it using their own personal phone (as did AT&T). I went to an Apple Store and they restored my iPhone thinking it was a software issue- it still did not work correctly.

So now I can confidently say that is not a question of device capability or an issue with my account.

To be more specific, while I currently have a conference going on between myself and two other people I will go through the normal steps to add a fourth person to the conversation. I am able to speak to that person separately while the other two initial callers can speak between themselves. Everything is going good so far as I have not merged this new caller to my first two callers (to make a four-way conference). When I press merge, the new caller's name moves up to the word Conference and they all blend in together- but only for a split second. After literally half a second they return to the state just before I pressed the merge button, the new name being separated from the initial two (conferenced) callers.

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Answer 3

Sam M. Author

Level 3

604 points

May 14, 2009 10:52 PM in response to Sam M.

So I was able to solve this and am posting this for anyone else who has this same issue.
Surprisingly, or at least with my experience, very few people that I spoke with when trying to resolve this are even aware of the ability to merge more than 3 people into a call. The genius at the Apple Store took my word for it, but I wasn't able to actually prove to him that it worked on other phones because all the phones in the store I guess couldn't make real calls. I was however able to prove to him that it didn't work...

Both the support lines for AT&T and Apple were also unaware until I urged them to try it and to their surprise they were successful. Finally, at the advice of one of the geniuses, I went to an AT&T retail store and asked them if it was an issue with my account. They checked and it was "provisioned" correctly.

No one at the AT&T store thought it was possible either, and while they were looking for the KB article I had linked above, one of the employees offered her phone so I could demonstrate. It worked on hers! We swapped SIM cards and with her card in my phone I was able to do it as well. So then she just gave me a new SIM card and now it works fine. If only I had known it was that easy...

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