A page party station configured to provide page announcing and party line conferencing with respect to other page party stations, the page party station connected to other page party stations in a network that supports multicast and point-to-point communication, the page party station comprising: a network interface to connect the page party station to the network; at least one selector switch configured to select from a plurality of party lines when the page party station is configured to transmit and receive audio in party line conferencing with other page party stations and from a plurality of page lines when the page party station is configured to transmit and receive page announcements with respect to the other page party stations, the party lines being assigned respective party line sockets and the page lines being assigned respective page sockets in accordance with a system configuration; and characterized by a processing device configured to operate in a mutual provisioning mode to configure the station to provide page announcing and party line conferencing operations using voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) on the network, wherein the mutual provisioning mode is configured to allocate multicast addresses to designate page sockets and party line sockets used by the page party station and the other page party stations in accordance with the system configuration, and the page party station, once configured, is configured to operate to listen to its configured page sockets for received audio, to transmit audio on its configured page sockets, and to participate in party line conferencing on its configured partly line sockets in accordance with the system configuration; wherein, during the mutual provisioning mode, at least one of the page party station and the other page party stations is provided with the system configuration upon initialization and is configured to operate as a master station and the page party station and the other page party stations are operable to use a designated multicast address as a dedicated channel, the processing device being configured to perform at least one of sending the system configuration on the dedicated channel when the page party station is the master station, and receiving the system configuration via the dedicated channel from one of the other page party stations operating as the master station. a network interface to connect the page party station to the network; at least one selector switch configured to select from a plurality of party lines when the page party station is configured to transmit and receive audio in party line conferencing with other page party stations and from a plurality of page lines when the page party station is configured to transmit and receive page announcements with respect to the other page party stations, the party lines being assigned respective party line sockets and the page lines being assigned respective page sockets in accordance with a system configuration; and characterized by a processing device configured to operate in a mutual provisioning mode to configure the station to provide page announcing and party line conferencing operations using voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) on the network, wherein the mutual provisioning mode is configured to allocate multicast addresses to designate page sockets and party line sockets used by the page party station and the other page party stations in accordance with the system configuration, and the page party station, once configured, is configured to operate to listen to its configured page sockets for received audio, to transmit audio on its configured page sockets, and to participate in party line conferencing on its configured partly line sockets in accordance with the system configuration; wherein, during the mutual provisioning mode, at least one of the page party station and the other page party stations is provided with the system configuration upon initialization and is configured to operate as a master station and the page party station and the other page party stations are operable to use a designated multicast address as a dedicated channel, the processing device being configured to perform at least one of sending the system configuration on the dedicated channel when the page party station is the master station, and receiving the system configuration via the dedicated channel from one of the other page party stations operating as the master station.