The Cisco Conferencing and Transcoding Port Adapter provides flexible conferencing and transcoding services for the Cisco CMM. Conference resources can now be deployed in distributed locations, including the remote branches within the network. Users can bring people into conversations spontaneously by pressing the conference button on the IP phone. With its transcoding capabilities, the port adapter allows endpoints that support differing codecs to participate in the same conference session. It can also help minimize the bandwidth effect of calls across the WAN by transcoding G.711 calls to compressed codecs such as G.729 or G.723. Up to four of the port adapters can be plugged into a single Cisco CMM Line Card.