Method and system for providing conferencing services in a telecommunications system

A telecommunication system for performing a conference, the system including nodes, said nodes having DSP chips with resources to perform a conferencing function, comprising:

• a. a PCM receiver for receiving incoming channels of PCM data;
• b. a processor associated with said PCM receiver programmed to identify those channels of PCM data involved in the particular conferences being handled by the system in that instance, and for each conference, said processor calculates the energies associated with each channel;
• c. accumulator means for accumulating and storing the calculated energies of the information from each channel;
• d. memory storage device for storing said calculated energies;
• e. said processor being coupled to said memory storage device and being further programmed to survey said calculated energies at a regular interval and to select a predetermined number of loudest channels at a predetermined rate;
• f. second accumulator for accumulating the identity of the N loudest channels and including a second memory storage device having an active array of N loudest channels;
• and
• g. means for performing the conference by summing the current N loudest channels and writing out conferenced information to the conferees.

A method of providing a conference in an expandable telecommunication system among two or more conferees represented by a plurality of incoming channels of sampled voice information, the method including the steps of:

• a. storing samples of voice information in an associated memory storage array;
• b. processing said samples to determine the N conferees which are loudest wherein N is greater than or equal to one;
• c. retrieving from said memory storage array, the samples corresponding to those N loudest conferees;
• d. processing said retrieved samples, including summing said retrieved samples using a conferencing algorithm to produce a conferenced output sample;
• and
• e. transmitting a conferenced output sample to at least one conferee.

A method of providing a conference in an expandable telecommunication system among two or more conferees represented by a plurality of incoming channels of sampled voice information, the method including the steps of:

• a. storing samples of voice information in an associated memory storage array;
• b. obtaining sub-samples from samples of voice information for each of the conferees;
• c. performing a mathematical calculation on the sub-samples to determine an energy value for each channel for a particular conference;
• d. placing said calculated energies corresponding to each channel for said particular conference in an energy accumulator;
• e. surveying said energies to select the N greatest energies corresponding to the N loudest channels, and storing samples corresponding to said N loudest conferees;
• f. retrieving from memory storage, the samples corresponding to those N loudest conferees;
• g. processing said retrieved samples using a conferencing algorithm to produce a conferenced output sample;
• and
• h. transmitting a conferenced output sample to at least one conferee.