Patent ID: 6724747
Filing Date: 2004-04-20
Classification: H04L,H04M,H04Q

Abstract:
A communication system for providing local and long distance telephone service over a packet based network to telephone subscribers connected to circuit switched switching offices, said system comprisinga plurality of gateways including trunk gateways connecting the packet based network to individual ones of the switching offices, residential gateways connected to subscriber telephones, and SS7 gateways connected to individual ones of the switching offices, and a service control system including a plurality of call agent clusters, each of said gateways being connected to one of said call agent clusters, one of said call agent clusters serving as an ingress call agent cluster and another of said call agent clusters serving as an egress call agent cluster for a specific communication to be set up through the packet based network between a calling and a called telephone subscriber, and a software bus interconnecting the ingress call agent cluster receiving information from the calling subscriber and the egress call agent cluster associated with the called subscriber, said egress call agent cluster communicating to the gateway element associated with the called subscriber for establishing the connection over the packet based network.