Internet telephone connection method, bandwidth controller and gate keeper

• US 6,600,735 B1
• Filed: 03/01/1999
• Issued: 07/29/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 01/29/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Mori, Yuichi, Honda, Ryogo, Sugimoto, Tomohide, Kuroyanagi, Kansuke, Iwama, Etsuko
• Primary Examiner(s): Yao, Kwang Bin
• Assistant Examiner(s): NGUYEN, HANH N
• Application Number:
  US09/260,398
• Time in Patent Office: 1,611 Days
• Field of Search: 370/216, 370/217, 370/218, 370/219, 370/227, 370/228, 370/235, 370/236, 370/237, 370/400, 370/401, 370/352-356, 370/468, 370/395.21, 370/241, 379/219, 379/220
• US Class Current: 370/352
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5012 determining service availability, e.g. which services are available at a certain point in time
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5087 wherein the managed service relates to voice services management of VoIP services H04M7/0081
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/55 Testing of service level quality, e.g. simulating service usage
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/70 Admission control; Resource allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/724 at intermediate nodes, e.g. resource reservation protocol [RSVP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/745 Reaction in network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/762 triggered by the network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/781 Centralised allocation of resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/785 among multiple network domains, e.g. multilateral agreements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/801 Real time traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/822 Collecting or measuring resource availability data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/826 Involving periods of time
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/103 in the network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/104 in the network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1106 Call signalling protocols; H.323 and related
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/08 Indicating faults in circuits or apparatus
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/1245 : where a network other than PSTN/ISDN interconnects two PSTN/ISDN networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/1285 : Details of finding and selecting a gateway for a particular call

Abstract

In an Internet telephone connection method, a communication bandwidth is managed by using a bandwidth controller, gateway devices and voice relay routers to monitor communication quality under bandwidth reservation. A communication path under bandwidth reservation is preferentially selected by using gate keepers and the voice relay routers, and the connection of the Internet telephone is performed. A problematic device is prohibited from being selected as a connection-destination device at the time of a call setup and the problem restoration is monitored by using the gate keepers and the gateway devices. Further, a device having invalid attribute information is prohibited from being selected as a connection-destination device at the time of call-setup, and the restoration of the attribute information is notified to the overall network. Accordingly, the reservation of the communication bandwidth can be performed under the control of the overall network, fixed communication quality can be maintained and reliability can be enhanced.

Claims

1. An Internet telephone connection method for the use with the Internet comprising plural zones, which includes gateway devices each for mutually connecting a PSTN (public switched telephone network) and the Internet, gate keepers each provided for each zone and each for managing the gateway devices in a corresponding zone, and a bandwidth controller for managing the gate keeper in each zone, wherein said method comprises the steps of:

each of said gate keepers registering in a device status managing table, status information of the gateway device and a voice relay router in the corresponding zone as well as the status information of gateway devices and voice relay routers managed by other gate keepers in other zones;

carrying out a test of checking connectability for a gateway device in the corresponding zone indicated as “

out of service”

in the device status managing table of said gate keeper while a problem state continues;

excluding said gateway devices indicated as “

out of service”

from selection targets; and

returning the device status of said gateway devices indicated as “

out of service”

to “

in service”

in the device status managing table when the problem is restored while notifying the normal state to the other said gate keepers managing other zones.