By Charlene O'Hanlon

Less than a month after announcing its host PBX service, Intermedia has added a conference bridge offering to its roster of services for small and midsize businesses.

The Conference Bridges service will be offered as an add-on to Intermedias hosted Microsoft Exchange service. Customers using it will be able to host conference calls with dial-in numbers and pass codes for monthly flat rate with no minimum use requirements, according to the company.

There are two flavors of conferencing available: an Open option that allows participants to speak as soon as they join, and a Moderated option that requires a moderator PIN to be entered before participants can speak. Toll-free and direct dial-in numbers are provided with the service.

Users can control their conferences via their own Intermedia HostPilot Control Panel, a Web-based dashboard for all of Intermedias services including e-mail, hosted PBX, document management, mobility and instant messaging.

The new offering comes less than a month after Intermedia announced its hosted PBX service, which connects seamlessly to the hosted Exchange solution, giving users the ability to utilize the programs unified communications features including voicemail to e-mail and click-to-call.

The service is not integrated with our hosted PBX offering; however it can be added on to a customers hosted PBX just as it can be added on to a customers hosted Exchange solution,” said Jonathan McCormick, Intermedia COO. “Conference Bridges is available through Intermedia’s HostPilot Control Panel … Additionally, customers can manage the sharing of Conference Bridges at their company via our Resource Mailbox offering.”

With the addition of the conference solution, Intermedia is bringing a unified communications experience to its customers, McCormick said. We understand the value unified communications can bring to SMB customers. Business-class e-mail and telephony capabilities, which include conference bridge features, are foundational components to unified communications solutions and SMBs can acquire those capabilities from Intermedia.”