Patent ID: 6535521
Filing Date: 2003-03-18
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
In a telephony gateway including a distributed speech coder pool system comprising a plurality of front-end modules and a plurality of back-end modules capable of contemporaneously servicing a plurality of Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) call sessions, a method of maintaining a physical layer link between the telephony gateway and users involved in a given call session for duration of call session, each call session being serviced by both a front-end module and a back-end module dynamically assigned thereto at call setup, the method comprising:(a) receiving, by a front-end module servicing a present call, non-coded speech frame information; (b) encoding, by a back-end module servicing the present call, the non-coded speech frame information to generate at least encoded speech frames in an internet protocol compatible format; (c) analyzing the non-coded speech frame information to identify a break in speech during the call session; (d) relinquishing control by the back-end module in response to a break in speech; (e) continuing to analyze subsequent non-coded speech information after the break in speech to identify when speech is transmitted; and (f) upon detecting that speech is transmitted, assigning a back-end module to generate associated encoded speech frames.