Use Microsoft Teams to broadcast through TOA’s IP-A1 series

TOA Canada and its parent company, TOA Corporation, continue to develop technical advancements to improve the functionality of their communication and security equipment. The goal to ensure our audio systems provide the best means of communication and simplify the process for end users, drove our R&D department to devise the IP-A1’s integration with Teams.

“The convenience to broadcast a message throughout the facility from the comfort of your computer desk, I think that’s pretty cool”, said enthusiastically by TOA Canada director Rico Lucia. With the advent of video conferencing software, many employees work with Microsoft Teams; and now have the capability to perform a broadcast by making a call from Teams to IP-A1 equipment using a PC, tablet, or smartphone. With Teams’ Dial Pad function, you can use DTMF (over RTP) to specify a multicast number and broadcast destination area. The other valuable feature is the ability to initiate a call from the IP-A1 to Teams utilizing a microphone panel and execute a half-duplex conversation as long as there is a speaker nearby to hear the person at the other end of the call.

This Teams integration is achieved by using the optional middleware called CyberGate for Intercom, provided by CyberTwice. The subscription-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is hosted in Azure and enables enterprises that have adopted Teams to connect IP devices with two-way audio and live video to Microsoft Teams without needing any extra hardware or software. The addition of the broadcasting feature via Teams to the IP-A1 lineup enhances the series potential, producing a dynamic paging system with the click of a mouse.