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How to make a three-way phone call

(Or four-way, five-way, multi-way etc if you like)

This works on British Telecom lines. Other phone companies may have systems which are different/equivalent. It's worth finding out about. Update 2012: I've now updated this page so it includes instructions for 3-way calls on Vonage as well.

The cost of 3-way calls on BT is the cost of both the calls plus 50p. (Don't you think that puts people off, charging the extra 50p, when the phone company is already being paid for both of the calls?). On Vonage, there is no extra charge for it being a three way call, and as it's a VoIP system the calls can sometimes be free as well.

Also, generally you need to have a phone with a RECALL button on it. It also has to be a phone that goes beep when you press the buttons (a "tone-dial" phone). Most tone-dial phones have a RECALL button.

Anyway, here's the method...

(On Vonage, the same thing, but you don't need to press 3 at the end).

And then during the call you can talk to both people at the same time, or to one or the other only, using these controls:

(On Vonage, I don't know if this works)

To end the call, you can selectively end one or other link by these controls:

(On Vonage, I don't know if this works)

Also, it's worth noting that while making such a 3-way phone call, either of the other two people can perform a similar procedure and start other three-way calls. In this way it is possible to set up a multi-way call of many participants.

Don't forget that phone calls can be expensive, and if you are nattering to a lot of people at the same time on the phone it could cost more than you might guess. Still, it's worth knowing this technique is possible, as there may be circumstances in which it's a good idea.

There is also such a thing as a CONFERENCE CALL which has to be arranged via the Operator. This is more expensive, but can be more practical if more than six people are being called at the same time.

Incidentally, I am not British Telecom, and I am not getting paid for putting this information up here. It's just me being helpful. If you'd like me to get paid, it's worth bookmarking my site and looking around the pages where I have a lot of interesting stuff for sale which I get paid commission on! I'm also not Vonage , but I have an interesting page about Vonage customer testimonial where I explain how I emigrated and kept my phone!

I'd like to have an affiliate program with Pow Wow, a company who had an alternative way of doing 3-way calls. They had an affiliate program a while ago, but I don't know what's happened to it since.

If you'd like to buy a phone, one of the places worth having a look is BT Phone Shop where they've got various types of modern telephones for sale.

If the phone you have at present has no recall button, you can still do "recall" by a cunning method described at the page how to do a RECALL without having a Recall button

This page is one of many helpful pages at Zyra's website. If you find this helpful, it'd be a good idea to bookmark Zyra.ORG.UK so you know where to find it again. You can do this on Mozilla Firefox by pressing ctrl-D. Did you know that? It's like many of these shortcut keys which are handy.