Patent ID: 7130409

Claim:
A system for supporting telephony comprising: a plurality of client telephony devices for initiating and receiving calls; a telephony-over-local area network (ToL) enabled to support communications involving said client telephony devices with respect to both voice data and call-processing signals, thereby providing a first signal-handling capability of exchanging said call-processing signals for voice calls directed for connection to said client telephony devices via said ToL; and a second network enabled to provide a second signal-handling capability of exchanging said call-processing signals for said voice calls directed for connection to said client telephony devices via said ToL, said first and second signal-handling capabilities being redundant capabilities for exchanging said call-processing signals with individual said client telephony devices; wherein said second network is configured to limit activation of said second signal-handling capability to occasions in which said ToL is disabled with respect to supporting said communications involving said client telephony devices.