Patent ID: 7616643

Claim:
A method for processing an Internet Protocol (IP) packet at a router that supports signaling between switches of a circuit switched network, comprising the steps of: receiving Internet Protocol (IP) routing data that indicates an association between a network link and an IP address for a node in a signaling network including a plurality of signaling nodes; receiving an ingress IP data packet; determining whether conditions are satisfied for locally processing a signaling payload within the ingress IP data packet, wherein the signaling payload supports at least one of a physical circuit or a virtual circuit persistently established between a calling node and called node; if the conditions are satisfied for locally processing the signaling payload, then performing the step of locally processing the signaling payload without sending the signaling payload over a network link to a different node in the signaling network; and if the conditions are not satisfied for locally processing the signaling payload, then routing the ingress IP data packet based on the IP routing data and ingress header data in an IP header portion of the ingress IP data packet.