This paper describes an approach to building an audio conferencing application for Android smart phones. As the need for audio conferencing systems grow, the smart phone becomes a viable platform for developing conferencing applications. We have implemented a centralized audio conferencing model and developed a client application which was deployed on Android-based smart phones. Experiments for battery consumption and packet delay were designed and carried out to evaluate the usability of the application. The smart phones were not affected by the application under low traffic conditions; however, the application did consume twice as much battery life under heavy traffic conditions. The results for delay testing showed that increasing the number of participants, and thereby introducing multiple audio streams, resulted in longer packet average delays. Throughout the development process, problems involving software/hardware diversification and audio signal processing were uncovered and potential solutions were proposed. The paper provides valuable information for developing VOIP applications on smart phones and can direct future development of audio conferencing systems.

Recommended Citation: Sun J., Vetter R., Reinicke B., Patterson L., (2012). An Investigation into Audio Conferencing on Smart Phones . UNCW MS CSIS Proceedings. V. 6 , N. 14 .