In a variety of conferencing scenarios, a local communication channel is desirable for conference-related information exchange between co- located but otherwise independent application entities, for example those taking part in application sessions that belong to the same conference. In loosely coupled conferences such a mechanism allows for coordination of applications entities to e.g. implement synchronization between media streams or to configure entities without user interaction. It can also be used to implement tightly coupled conferences enabling a conference controller to enforce conference wide control within a end system.