Patent ID: 8767716

Claim:
A method of routing a Voice over Internet Protocol communication, comprising: receiving, at an originating user telephony device, a request to setup a communications channel between the originating user telephony device and a destination telephony device; establishing the requested communications channel over an initial media path; testing, via the originating user telephony device, a quality of the initial media path on a periodic basis after the communications channel has been established; determining a communications quality of the initial media path after each occurrence of the periodic testing; and causing the communications channel to switch from the initial media path to an alternate media path when the communications quality of the initial media path is lower than a predetermined threshold quality level, wherein the causing step comprises: testing, via the originating user telephony device, a quality of one or more alternate media paths for the communications channel; determining when the communications quality of at least one of the one or more alternate media paths is higher than the communications quality of the initial media path; and switching the communications channel from the initial media path to one of the one or more alternate media paths that has a quality higher than the initial media path when the communications quality of at least one of the one or more alternate media paths is higher than the communications quality of the initial media path.