Why IP Speakers are the future of PA Solutions

What is an IP Speaker?

Increased automation of Industrial and Public spaces brings in increased use of CCTV Systems, Public Announcement (PA) Systems, and other monitoring and control systems for these environments. The need to optimise the underlying network of any system crystallises the usage of single IP networks for all the components. Both the above reasons lead to the birth of IP Speakers, which are speakers connected over IP networks supporting SIP, IP Multicast protocols etc.

Traditional analog Public Announcement Systems have a paging station connected to an amplifier, from which multiple speakers are connected. In case of the IP Speaker, they can be connected anywhere in the network, and the amplifier is inside the speaker. Inherent from the architecture of having the amplifier in each speaker, the pricing per speaker goes high.

The network modernisation and the built-in Speaker bring in multiple advantages, which make it worth the higher price you pay for an IP Speaker.

The distances from analog PA Station to the Amplifier, and Amplifier to each Speaker are limited, as the quality and volume drops at longer distances. The IP Speakers overcome these issues, by having Paging System and Speakers connected over multiple routers, switches etc and the amplifier inbuilt within the Speaker. The concept of individual amplifiers inside the speaker increases the cost per speaker but brings in much higher reliability, and uniform operation.

As the age of the system increases and the performance of cables decreases, the speaker’s performance is also affected in case of analog systems. In case of IP, the IP Protocols take care of the error-free transport of speech to the speaker.

IP Speakers also possess many more features, which justify the additional price paid like:

• IP Speaker Paging consoles are generally software controlled and therefore very flexible in terms of the definition of Zones like the number of Zones, number of speakers in each Zone, Overlapping Zones etc
• Announcements from Database applications like CRM, ERP etc based on events like reaching a particular revenue.
• Announcements connected to sensors and other monitoring devices
• Flexible scheduling of announcements including volume for each announcement
• Graphical display of Zones
• Speaker status display

In a gist, IP Speakers work out to be a costlier proposition, but comes with multiple advantages, which justifies the price. With careful network planning and integrating all IP devices like PBX, CCTV, IP Speaker, Laptops, Desktops, IoT devices etc into a single IP network, the additional cost can be compensated.