Patent ID: 7480284

Claim:
An internet protocol (IP) telephone appliance in a communications network comprising: a digital phone set, said digital phone set including a voice input; said digital telephone set including a voice output; a digital signal processor; at least one processing module coupled to each of said digital signal processor and said digital telephone set, said at least one processing module including a transport protocol stack and a security stack; a local area network interface coupled to said at least one processing module; and a wide area network interface coupled to said at least one processing module; characterized in that the voice input receives incoming voice signals from a user, the at least one processing module converts the incoming voice signals into outgoing IP voice packets, encodes the outgoing IP voice packets and transmits the outgoing IP voice packets to a destination device, further characterized in that the at least one processing module receives incoming IP voice packets encoded by a source device, decodes the incoming IP voice packets, and if the decoded packets are destined for another device in the communications network, forwards the decoded packets to the other device, and otherwise converts the decoded packets into outgoing voice signals and transmits the outgoing voice signals to the user via the voice output; and further characterized in that the at least on processing module, in encoding a particular packet, determines whether to encrypt a payload portion of the particular packet or both a header and the payload portion of the particular packet base on an address of the destination device.