Patent ID: 7257199

Claim:
A method for controlling a telephone network for telephony based remote location monitoring, comprising: responsive to receiving a caller request to listen only to a remote location telephony device, allocating a listen only channel between a caller telephony device and said remote location telephony device; activating a microphone at said remote location telephony device via said listen only channel; streaming audio detected at said microphone via said listen only channel to said caller telephony device; responsive to receiving said caller request to listen only to a plurality of remote location telephony devices by rotating said listen only channel among said plurality of remote location telephony devices, monitoring a current time period that said listen only channel is allocated between said caller telephony device and said remote location telephony device; responsive to said current time period exceeding a rotation time limit, deallocating said listen only channel between said caller telephony device and said remote location telephony device; and reallocating said listen only channel between said caller telephony device and a next remote location telephony device from among said plurality of remote location telephony devices.