Patent ID: 9730270
Date: 2017-08-08
CPC Classifications: H04L,H04M,H04W

Claim:
1. A dual-mode communication device, comprising: microphone and speaker apparatus including converters for rendering audio data as audible speech, and for rendering audible speech as audio data; a first communication interface comprising circuitry for receiving and sending the audio data on a cell-phone network, where the dual-mode communication device has a first destination number registered with the cell-phone network for routing calls to the device via the cell-phone network; a second communication interface comprising circuitry for connecting to a local area network (LAN), and for receiving and sending the audio data on the LAN; a mode controller accessible to a user of the communication device for selecting between a cellular mode and an IP communication mode; memory containing instructions that, when executed, cause the dual-mode communication device to: register a second destination number with the dual-mode communication device's cell-phone network when the second communication interface is connected to the LAN; enable audio data for calls to be sent and received via the LAN using the second destination number for routing; respond to selection of the cellular mode by sending and receiving communications via the first communication interface utilizing the first destination number; respond to selection of the IP communication mode by sending and receiving communications via the second communication interface utilizing the second destination number; detect an inbound call; detect that the inbound call is exempt from the IP communication mode; and in response to detecting that the inbound call is exempt from the IP communication mode, and while the IP communication mode is enabled, handle the inbound call via the first communication interface instead of the second communication interface, for communicating over the cell-phone network instead of the local area network.