Patent ID: 7697512

Claim:
A method of controlling placement of a call from a voice-over-internet protocol (IP) communication subscriber device comprising the steps of: (a) prior to placing said call, automatically testing, from said voice-over-IP communication subscriber device, available connectivity between said device and each of a plurality of servers through which said call may be placed by eliciting a response from each server in the plurality of servers without establishing a connection for a call by transmitting a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) request to each server, and if a server fails to respond to a SIP request after a predetermined number of times when the SIP request was transmitted to the respective server to elicit a response, then simulating a response from the server that had not responded to the SIP request using another mechanism that supports voice-over-internet protocol to determine if the unresponsive server can establish a connection and receive a voice-over-internet protocol call, and based on the results of the testing, updating a connection status in a server table that stores data regarding the priority of servers to be called if a voice-over-internet call is to be made; and (b) causing said device to automatically select a server having a higher priority based on the priority of connection status as stored in the server table and based upon said connectivity automatically tested in step (a); and (c) causing said device to attempt to place said call through said selected one of said plurality of servers.