DIGITAL VOICE CONFERENCER

A digital voice conferencer for providing digitally encoded vocal communication among a plurality of remotely located digital voice terminals. The conferencer buffers and synchronizes the incoming digital signals generated by each of the terminals and periodically selects a primary speaker signal on a predetermined priority basis. The conferencer distributes the primary speaker signal to the remaining terminals and the primary speaker terminal is sent either an idle or interrupter signal. The idle signal causes the primary speaker to hear silence and the interrupter signal causes the primary speaker to hear voice information from a selected terminal other than that of the primary speaker.