An audio conferencing apparatus and method. The apparatus includes a data bus, such as a TDM bus, a controller, and an interface circuit that receives audio signals from a plurality of conference participants and provides digitized audio signals in assigned time slots over the TDM bus. The audio conferencing platform also includes a plurality of digital signal processors (DSPs) adapted to communicate on the TDM bus with the interface circuit. At least one of the DSPs sums a plurality of the digitized audio signals associated with conference participants who are speaking, to provide a summed conference signal. This DSP provides the summed conference signal to at least one of the other DSPs, which removes the digitized audio signal associated with a speaker whose voice is included in the summed conference signal, to provide a customized conference audio signal to each of the speakers.
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application is a continuation of U.S. Non-Provisional patent application Ser. No. 09/532,602 filed Mar. 22, 2000, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,625,271, entitled "Scalable Audio Conference Platform" which non-provisional application claims the benefit of the following applications: 1) U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/148,975 filed Aug. 13, 1999, entitled "Scalable Audio Conference Platform with a Centralized Audio Mixer" and 2) U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/125,440 filed Mar. 22, 1999, entitled "Audio Conference Platform System and Method for Broadcasting a Real-Time Audio Conference Over the Internet".
