Abstract

An arrangement for conducting a conference call over a distributed digital network in which, at each station connected to the conference call, only voice packets from the other stations connected to the conference call are received. To avoid the need for synchronization between stations connected to the conference call, a local time base is established to define a sequence of periodic intervals during which a single voice packet will be accepted from each station connected to the conference call. The interval is advantageously set to be approximately equal the sampling period for data in a received data packet which will be reasonably uniform for all stations on the network. This provides that, typically, a maximum of one data packet will be received from any selected station during a single time base interval. The time base interval can be adaptively adjusted by monitoring the transmission queues of the local or other stations connected to the conference call and the interval can be reduced if a transmission queue exceeds a predetermined length.