Patent ID: 8559611

Claim:
A conferencing system for communicating audio information between a near-end location and a far-end conferencing device at a far-end location, the conferencing system comprising: a primary conferencing device; and at least one non-primary conferencing devices communicably coupled to the primary conferencing device, wherein each of the at least one non-primary conferencing devices generates audio signals representative of voices of near-end participants and transmits the generated audio signals to the primary conferencing device in a frequency domain, wherein one of the primary conferencing device and the at least one non-primary conferencing devices is communicably coupled to the far-end conferencing device, wherein the primary conferencing device is configured to mix a frequency domain audio signal generated by the primary conferencing device with the generated audio signals received in the frequency domain from each of the at least one non-primary conferencing devices and generate a frequency domain near-end audio signal, and wherein the primary conferencing device is configured to convert the frequency domain near-end audio signal to a time domain near-end audio signal and provide the time domain near-end audio signal for transmission to the far-end conferencing device.