System and method for providing call management services in a virtual private network using voice or video over internet protocol

• US 7,218,722 B1
• Filed: 12/18/2000
• Issued: 05/15/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/18/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Netgear Holdings Ltd. (NETGEAR, Inc.), NETGEAR, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Westell Technologies Incorporated
• Inventors: Higgins, Rodger D., Noll, William J., Harrington, Paul V., Turner, George W.
• Primary Examiner(s): Tsang; Fan
• Assistant Examiner(s): Elahee; Md S.
• Application Number:
  US09/739,716
• Time in Patent Office: 2,339 Days
• Field of Search: 379/221.13, 379/265.04, 379/114.1, 379/201.01, 379/211.01, 379/144.01, 379/38, 379/211.02, 379/88.01, 379/221.02, 709/318, 709/229, 709/204, 709/227, 709/248, 455/445, 455/435.3, 370/352, 370/338, 705/400
• US Class Current: 379/221.02
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/66 Arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4547 for personal communications, i.e. using a personal identifier
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4557 Directories for hybrid networks, e.g. including telephone numbers
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/006 Networks other than PSTN/ISDN providing telephone service, e.g. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) , including next generation networks with a packet-switched transport layer H04L65/00 takes precedence; aspects not specific to the type of network H04M3/00; special services in those networks H04M3/42
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/009 in systems involving PBX or KTS networks

Abstract

A system and method for providing call management services in a Virtual Private Network of the present invention uses the advantages of end-to-end Internet Protocol signaling. The system and method of the present invention includes a user profile which offers both a customer address and a user name as search keys. The method includes locating the called party who may be at a multiplicity of possible physical locations, evaluating the calling and called party privileges, routing preferences and busy/idle status for establishing permission to set up the call, determining an optimum route to establish the telephone call. Due to the system and method of the present invention, the telephone call takes the optimum route and preferably the most direct route to the destination with a high probability of completion.

Claims

1. A telephone network system for providing a private network comprising in combination:

a Public Switched Telephone Network;

an Internet Protocol Network in communication with the Public Switched Telephone Network using at least one of a trunk gateway, a call agent and a router; and

a server-based interface for translating between at least one address on the Public Switched Telephone Network and at least one address on the Internet Protocol Network, wherein the server-based interface uses statically assigned customer addresses for calls between devices on the private network, wherein the server-based interface uses associations between the customer addresses and network addresses that are dynamically alterable, wherein the server-based interface uses static associations between the network addresses and Internet Protocol addresses, and wherein the telephone network system provides a caller with one of at least reservation of Internet Protocol network bandwidth and continuous performance monitoring of the Internet Protocol network as input to per-call routing decisions.

2. The telephone network system of claim 1, wherein the server-based interface includes a directory server, a domain name server, a proxy server and a portability server.

3. The telephone network system of claim 1, wherein the Public Switched Telephone Network and the Internet Protocol Network communicate using instructions provided to the trunk gateway by a client to agent protocol.

4. The telephone network system of claim 3, wherein the client to agent protocol is a Media Gateway Control Protocol.