Patent ID: 8345663

Claim:
A communication system for a vehicle, comprising: an internet protocol network; a plurality of passenger announcement speakers in communication with the internet protocol network, each passenger announcement speaker of the plurality including an internet protocol presence; and a plurality of interphone handsets in communication with the internet protocol network, each interphone handset of the plurality including an internet protocol presence and a communication function, wherein the communication function manages announcements from the interphone handset to at least one passenger announcement speaker of the plurality by accessing a data structure within the interphone handset to look up an IP address for each of the at least one passenger announcement speaker and communicating the IP address for each of the at least one passenger announcement speaker with the announcement to the at least one passenger announcement speaker, and wherein the plurality of passenger announcement speakers are configured in zones, each zone being defined by subsets of passenger announcement speakers of the plurality of passenger announcement speakers, and the data structure accessed by the communication function further includes information defining which of the IP addresses of the passenger announcement speakers are grouped within which of the zones.