Patent ID: 6961331

Claim:
An IP (Internet Protocol) gateway apparatus accommodating a plurality of sound channels, comprising: a first unit outputting synchronization signals, the synchronization signals indicating timing for generating packets containing a sound received from each of the plurality of sound channels; and a second unit receiving the synchronization signals outputted from said first unit, and respectively generating packets corresponding to each of the plurality of sound channels according to the timing in order to transmit the generated packets to the IP network, said second unit including a processing unit for reading encoded data from each of the buffers corresponding to each of the plurality of sound channels, each of the buffers storing encoded data that is obtained by encoding a sound corresponding to each of the plurality of sound channels, the timing including read timing for said producing unit reading the encoded data of each of the plurality of sound channels from each of the buffers, the read timing synchronizing with an encoding period of each of the plurality of sound channels, and the encoding period of each of the plurality of sound channels being determined not to overlap between the sound channels.