Internet multicasting

Until now, the ability to perform multicasting over the internet has not been possible. Omnitronics has implemented a technique to overcome this issue to enable a number of radios to be linked together over the internet in a peer-to-peer arrangement. Once in operation, audio received from any radio will be transmitted to every other radio.

Domain name services functionality has also been added to enable users to more easily configure IPR devices using URLs instead of IP addresses. This feature can be used to install an IPR device on an ADSL link using a dynamic IP address. This negates the need to buy a more expensive static IP address.

The IPR100 is a single-channel device with a local handset port while the IPR400 can interface four radios from a compact 1-RU housing. IP remote units can be used to create back-to-back IP links between two or more radios using point-to-point or point-to-multipoint communications.

The handset port on the IPR100 enables it to provide remote control and monitoring of a single radio from an operator's handset or console.

The company designed the IP remote family to transport signalling schemes such as ANI, DTMF and CTCSS over IP networks under data compression. Data compression, together with silence suppression techniques, provide advantages, especially when using satellite services. However, it also results in unreliable transmission of signalling tones.

Compression algorithms tend to degrade audio tones, resulting in poor

decoding of the reconstructed signal. Additionally, lost packets that are normally undetectable for voice will also degrade tone reliability.

The remote family overcomes these problems by directly decoding analog signalling tones, encoding them into data messages, then transferring the message across the IP network and reconstructing the signalling scheme at the remote end.