Patent ID: 6937598

Claim:
A system for establishing a dedicated channel to transport IP encapsulated ATM cells from one ATM network associated with a source gateway to another ATM network associated with a destination gateway over an IP backbone network without appending a header to each formatted frame of each cell, the system comprising: a source gateway interconnected to the IP backbone network, said source gateway operable to; transmit an IP signaling message requesting an IP address of a proper destination gateway to a controller upon receipt of an ATM signaling message from an ATM end point; receive the IP address from the controller confirming the address of the proper destination gateway from the controller; transmit an address registration message to the controller to register the source gateway; exchange set-up messages with the proper destination gateway to transport IP encapsulated ATM cells associated with a call; and transmit an open logical channel request message to the controller to request the establishment of a dedicated channel between the source gateway and the destination gateway to transport the IP encapsulated ATM cells.