Abstract: A method and apparatus to connect a group of users via a communications network for a conference call. An initializing signal from an initializing user is detected and the initializing user is allowed to select a predefined user group. The user group comprises a list of users and their associated phone numbers that is created by a user using an user interface of a web portal and stored in a web portal database. After the selected user group is retrieved the availability of each user listed in the user group, for a conference call, is determined by connecting to each user via a communications network, announcing the initializing user to the connected user, and requesting a response from the connected user to determine if the connected user is available for the conference call. The available and connected users are interconnected with one another to allow the users to communicate in a conference call.