Patent ID: 7082141

Claim:
A communication apparatus comprising: a modem operable to be connected to a telephone line; a voice receiving interface apparatus for use in receiving voice signals from a local user; a voice conveying interface apparatus for use in conveying voice signals to the local user; and processing circuitry operable under control of a graphical user interface program executable on a personal computer, wherein the processing circuitry is operable to: convert received voice signals from the local user into outgoing digital voice information and convert incoming digital voice information into voice signals for conveyance to the local user; compress the outgoing digital voice information into compressed outgoing digital voice information and decompress compressed incoming digital voice information into the incoming digital voice information; packetize the compressed outgoing digital voice information and provide outgoing voice packets based thereon, each of the outgoing voice packets comprising at least one header; packetize outgoing data packets comprising outgoing digital data information, each of the outgoing data packets comprising at least one header; combine the outgoing voice packets and the outgoing data packets to provide a stream of outgoing packets to the telephone line via the modem; receive a stream of incoming packets via the modem from the telephone line, the stream of incoming packets comprising incoming data packets and incoming voice packets, each of the incoming voice packets comprising at least one header and each of the incoming data packets comprising at least one header, wherein the headers of the incoming voice packets and the incoming data packets comprise information used to route the incoming packets within the communication apparatus; and separate the stream of incoming packets to provide the incoming data packets comprising incoming digital data information and the incoming voice packets comprising the compressed incoming digital voice information.