"Tormenta" Switching and Conferencing Architecture

The "Tx" and "Rx" are referring to the actual streams going out to, and in from the channel on the T1.
The "Tx Buffer" and "Rx Buffer" are referring to the I/O buffers for the associated channel (that would be accessed via system read and write calls).

This archetecture also supports psuedo-I/O channels (I/O channels that do not have a physical T-1 channel associated with them, but still are useful to be accessible from an application), so that a non-channel associated entity, such as a monitoring device, music-on-hold device, or some other variety of announcement device may be a member of a conference.

Also, a conference may be a member of another conference (really only useful/meaningful when the audio is in only one direction). In this manner, an entire conference bridge may monitor another entire conference bridge. This is excellent for implementing voyeur-type systems.

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