Call routing

Multicast paging

Broadcast voice announcements and visual alerts to IP phones, speakers, and lights across your sites.

Multicast paging lets you speak to a group of phones all at once, like a public address system built into your phone network. When you page a group, every device in that group plays your voice through its speaker at the same moment, with no ringing and no need for anyone to pick up first. The announcement reaches every person in the group instantly.

This is the feature that replaces an overhead public address system for businesses already running IP phones: a warehouse floor, a hotel, a multi-room office, or a campus where staff need to hear a message and move immediately. Where email and chat take time to read, a paged announcement lands in the room.

When you'd use multicast paging

A warehouse supervisor needs to alert all floor staff to an incoming delivery or a safety issue, reaching every phone on the floor at once without a separate speaker installation.
A hotel front desk announces last-call or shift-change messages to all phones on a specific floor or department, without calling each room individually.
An office manager broadcasts a fire-drill or evacuation notice to every IP phone in the building, with priority paging set to interrupt any active hold music or announcements.

How multicast paging works in Voxbi

Create and name your paging groups in the Voxbi Cockpit

Go to Multicasts and set up a group for each audience you need to reach (for example, one group for the support floor, one for management, one for building-wide emergencies). Give each group a numeric group number that devices will subscribe to.
Assign devices to each group

Each phone or endpoint that should receive the announcement is subscribed to the relevant group number. A phone can belong to multiple groups, so a manager's handset can receive both the floor announcement and the all-staff emergency page.
Set priority for critical groups

Enable the priority toggle for groups like a fire alarm or emergency channel. Priority paging interrupts whatever the phone is doing and plays the announcement immediately, rather than queuing it.
Initiate the page

A staff member dials or triggers the multicast group number. Every subscribed phone plays the announcement live through its speaker. No one needs to lift the handset.

Multicast groups are managed entirely from the Voxbi Cockpit. You can add comments to each group to describe its purpose, and you can enable or disable individual groups without removing their device subscriptions.

Frequently asked questions

Do the phones ring before playing the announcement?

No. Multicast paging works like a broadcast: subscribed phones open their speaker and play the audio immediately. There is no ring tone and no need for the recipient to answer.

Can a phone belong to more than one paging group?

Yes. A device can be subscribed to several groups simultaneously. This means general-purpose phones can receive both department-specific pages and building-wide emergency announcements.

What is the priority toggle for?

When priority is enabled for a group, a page to that group interrupts lower-priority audio on the receiving phones, including hold music or a lower-priority page that is already playing. Use it for safety and emergency channels where the message must not wait.

Does multicast paging require special hardware?

Your phones must support multicast paging via SIP, which most modern IP desk phones do. The Voxbi Cockpit manages the group configuration; the phones handle the audio reception. No separate physical paging hardware is required if your IP phones have built-in speakers.

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Multicast paging

When you'd use multicast paging

How multicast paging works in Voxbi

Create and name your paging groups in the Voxbi Cockpit

Assign devices to each group

Set priority for critical groups

Initiate the page

Frequently asked questions

More call routing features

After call work

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Call priority

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