Wireless communication systems and, specifically, wireless dispatch systems are known. Such wireless dispatch systems provide dispatch services that allow groups of mobile users to communicate spontaneously as a group without the need for arranging a conference call. In today's wireless dispatch systems, each group member must carry a radiophone device, and remain within the coverage area of the dispatch system to maintain communication with the group.
With the recent proliferation of Internet technologies and the ubiquitous nature of Internet access today, a great variety of existing technologies are integrating with and exploiting the Internet. Integration of wireless dispatch systems with the Internet, could enable dispatch users to maintain dispatch communication using a computer connected to the Internet, for example, in place of a radio-telephone device that must remain within the coverage area of the dispatch system. Thus, a group of users, some with radio-telephones and others, dispatch clients, with computers connected to the Internet from anywhere in the world, could communicate as a group just as groups of radio-telephone users do today.
Therefore, a need exists for an apparatus and method for providing dispatch service to dispatch clients via a packet-switched network such as the Internet.