Patent ID: 7986644

Claim:
A multi-fidelity conferencing system comprising: a wideband mixer configured to operate at a first sampling frequency, wherein the wideband mixer provides to at least one wideband device of a plurality of wideband devices a first fidelity audio conferencing signal sampled at a first sampling frequency, and wherein the at least one wideband device is coupled to the wideband mixer through at least one first network; a narrowband mixer configured to operate at a second sampling frequency, wherein the narrowband mixer provides to at least one narrowband device of a plurality of narrowband devices a second fidelity audio conferencing signal sampled at the second sampling frequency, and wherein the at least one narrowband device is coupled to the narrowband mixer through at least one second network; wherein the at least one wideband device is operatively coupled to the wideband mixer and the at least one narrowband device is operatively coupled to the narrowband mixer; and a single link that operatively couples the wideband mixer to the narrowband mixer and converts (i) a single audio signal originated through mixing of a plurality of audio signals sampled at the first sampling frequency into an audio signal sampled at the second sampling frequency and (ii) a single audio signal originated through mixing of a plurality of audio signals sampled at the second sampling frequency into an audio signal sampled at the first sampling frequency.