Patent ID: 7417981

Claim:
A method of providing enhanced Internet telephony comprising steps of: (a) receiving a message from a source at an intermediate point between the source and a destination, said intermediate point including at least one port having a time out period within which the destination may send messages to the source via the intermediate point; (b) sending at least a portion of the message from the intermediate point to the destination over the Internet; (c) sending a response to the message from the destination to the intermediate point over the Internet within the time out period; (d) sending the response from the intermediate point to the source; (e) sending a reply to the response from the source to the intermediate point; (f) preventing the port from timing out by repeatedly sending subsequent messages from the destination over the Internet to the intermediate point; (g) sending at least a portion of corresponding ones of the subsequent messages from the intermediate point to the source; and (h) sending replies to the portion of the subsequent messages from the source to the intermediate point, wherein the current time out period restarts upon arrival at the intermediate point of a message from the destination.