Patent ID: 8355320

Claim:
A method for communicating presence information, the method comprising the acts of: initiating, by a communication station, a persistent packet-switched connection with an edge proxy device to provide incoming alerts to the communication station; establishing, by the communication station after the initiation of the persistent packet-switched connection, a first temporary packet-switched connection with a presence server contemporaneous with the persistent packet-switched connection, wherein the first temporary packet-switched connection is established independent of the edge proxy device; registering, by the communication station, with the presence server over the first temporary packet-switched connection, an interest in presence information of another communication station; receiving, by the communication station, an alert message sent from the presence server via the edge proxy device over the persistent packet-switched connection indicating that updated presence information of the another communication station is available; transmitting, by the communication station over a second temporary packet-switched connection contemporaneous with the persistent packet-switched connection, a request message for the updated presence information to the presence server in response to the alert message; and receiving, by the communication station over the second temporary packet-switched connection, the updated presence information from the presence server.