Hubbell Incorporated
METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR INTERFACING ANALOG PAGE PARTY SYSTEM TO INTERNET PROTOCOL PAGE PARTY SYSTEM

Abstract:

An audio bridge unit is provided for connecting a conventional analog page/party station in an analog page/party system to IP-based page/party stations that employ multicast Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology to support page/party communications between analog page/party stations and the VoIP page/party stations. The audio bridge unit converts page and/or party audio line(s) to multicast channel(s). The audio bridge unit analog interfaces for its respective page and/or party lines, and each analog interface is assigned to an independent multicast channel on which it will transmit and receive full duplex audio between an analog page/party station and one or more IP-based page/party stations. The audio bridge unit provides the ability to configure the multicast group, port and Time to Live (TTL) setting for each of the analog channels associated with the page and/or party lines.