Patent ID: 9549004
Date: 2017-01-17
CPC Classifications: H04L,H04M,H04W

Claim:
1. A method for routing a voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call, said method comprising: receiving from a first network a call request from a calling party to call a called party at a network address of a second network; determining a call path to connect the calling party from the first network to the called party at the network address of the second network, the call path comprising a plurality of network nodes; routing the call via the call path; determining, at one of the network nodes along the call path, and using performance information packets (“PIP packets”) generated by at least some of the plurality of network nodes along the call path, that the call path is impaired; accessing network performance information associated with a plurality of potential call paths other than the determined call path, the network performance information gathered from PIP packets generated by network nodes along each of the plurality of potential call paths, wherein the PIP packets comprise data about real-time and non-real-time bandwidth utilization and data about one or more of latency, jitter, or packet loss on network segments along the call path; identifying, at the one of the network nodes along the call path, a modified call path that would provide better performance than the determined call path; and re-routing the call, from the one of the nodes along the call path, over the modified to enable the calling party to communicate with the called party at the network address of the second network.