Patent ID: 7983681

Claim:
A method for transmitting voice calls in a communication system comprising the steps of: receiving, at a first set of base site repeaters capable of communicating with a communication unit using a first encoding format, an assignment to use a first multicast address; receiving, at a second set of base site repeaters capable of communicating with a communication unit using a second encoding format that is different from the first encoding format, an assignment to use a second multicast address that is different from the first multicast address; routing an audio signal that was encoded using the first encoding format to each base site repeater in the first set and to a transcoding server; at each base site repeater in the first set, broadcasting the audio signal that was encoded using the first encoding format; transcoding the audio signal that was encoded using the first encoding format to an audio signal encoded using the second encoding format; routing the audio signal that was encoded using the second encoding format to each base site repeater in the second set, wherein the audio signal that was encoded using the first encoded format is routed in the communication system using the first multicast address, and the audio signal that was encoded using the second different encoding format is routed in the same communication system using the second different multicast address; and at each base site repeater in the second set, broadcasting the audio signal that was encoded using the second encoding format.