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.

Abstract: A gateway is configured to be situated in a local area network (LAN) of Internet Protocol (IP)-based units having a serverless page party (SP2) function that employs multicast technology for page/party audio. The gateway converts multicast call traffic to unicast call traffic for transmission over the Internet to one or more IP units with SP2 function in different LANs. These different LANs are each provided with respective gateways that are configured to convert the unicast traffic back to multicast traffic to connect the page/party audio of an SP2 system among disparate facilities having different LANs, obviating the need for a dedicated and expensive wide area network for inter-LAN communication among IP units with SP2 function. A license and configuration server is configured to maintain a database of IP addresses of each gateway assigned to the respective inter-LAN or Internet groups and to communicate group IP addresses to the gateways.

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.

Abstract: A gateway is configured to be situated in a local area network (LAN) of Internet Protocol (IP)-based units having a serverless page party (SP2) function that employs multicast technology for page/party audio. The gateway converts multicast call traffic to unicast call traffic for transmission over the Internet to one or more IP units with SP2 function in different LANs. These different LANs are each provided with respective gateways that are configured to convert the unicast traffic back to multicast traffic to connect the page/party audio of an SP2 system among disparate facilities having different LANs, obviating the need for a dedicated and expensive wide area network for inter-LAN communication among IP units with SP2 function. A license and configuration server is configured to maintain a database of IP addresses of each gateway assigned to the respective inter-LAN or Internet groups and to communicate group IP addresses to the gateways.