Call the bridge. You will not hear a ring tone; the bridge will pick up the call immediately. You will hear a voice prompt to enter your conference code. Enter the assigned code and terminate with the '#' key. You do not need to wait for the prompt to finish to enter the conference code. If many calls are being answered simultaneously, you may hear 'music on hold' for a few seconds before the voice prompt plays. You can enter your conference code during the 'music on hold' without waiting for the prompt. Note: [2003-10-29] the incoming call queue can become so busy that the initial voice prompt will not stop when you start to enter the conference code, nor will your code be recognized even after the initial greeting plays. It appears that in this case it is best to hangup and re-dial.
If you have difficulty entering the code; for example, the bridge says 'that conference is restricted at this time' or 'the conference is full' you may enter *0 and the bridge will attempt to connect you with a live person at W3C if a person is available. This will generally be true during normal MIT work hours. Whomever on the W3C Team answers the operator signal should be able to assist you in connecting to your conference. (If you let the initial voice greeting play through to the end you will have heard this reminder about *0.)
At any time during the conference you can prevent the conference from hearing any sound from your phone by pressing 61#. (The mnemonic is 'Mute' On=1; '6' corresponds to the 'M' key on appropriately marked telephone keypads.) You will hear three rapid high pitched tones as a confirmation. If you are on a particularly noisy connection (an analog mobile phone for example) this mute will have better results than a local mute button on your phone, since the local mute button only turns off your local microphone without stopping noise introduced by the phone connection.
After using the sequence above to stop your audio you can turn your audio back on by pressing 60# ("Mute" off=0). The confirmation that the bridge has accepted this command is three rapid low-pitched tones. The other participants in the conference will not hear these tones; they will only know you unmuted your line by hearing background noise from you.
On large teleconferences it is important to maintain some decorum; when more than one person tries to speak at the same time other listeners will have difficulty understanding anyone. You may indicate your wish to speak by pressing 41# on your telephone keypad. This is the equivalent of typing "q+" or "queue+" to the Zakim irc bot. The mnemonic is '4' for Hand (the '4' key is also marked 'H' on US standard telephone keypads), and '1' for Up as in "put my hand up". If you later change your mind and wish to "put my hand down" without speaking, press 40#. There is no audible confirmation that either request has been heard by the bridge (conference chairs should take note of the irc feedback and at an appropriate opportunity confirm audibly that the hand has been seen.)
At any point after Zakim answers the phone you can request to be connected with a support person by pressing *0. If a person is available (generally during normal W3C/MIT work hours) he or she should answer shortly; if you are not yet in a conference you will hear 'music on hold' while Zakim is signalling the available personnel and you will hear ringing as soon as someone instructs Zakim that he or she will answer your call. If you are in a conference when you press *0 you will remain in the conference while waiting for your help request to be answered.
See Teleconference How-To. In brief, you must send email to adminreq to be assigned a conference code. If you would like to have a specific conference code (e.g. one that is mnemonic for your meeting) you should include that in your email request. The conference code will become activated about 10 minutes before your scheduled start time and will cease to be accepted for new callers immediately after your scheduled end time.