Patent ID: 7117241

Claim:
A telecommunications system for handling telecommunications in conformance with a predefined signaling system comprising: a network services processor (NSP) to distribute processing tasks including call handling and routing tasks; a plurality of resources including: a plurality of packet managers (PMs) to access, process, and distribute packetized call data over a packet network; a plurality of media control platforms (MCPs) to access, process, and distribute application tasks (MCTs) transmitted from the NSP; and a plurality of interconnect controllers (ICCs), each to interface the NSP with the plurality of resources and each ICC being operable to pass messages from the NSP to the plurality of resources and from the plurality of resources to the NSP, wherein the processing tasks are handled by the plurality of resources by concurrent and decentralized processing, and each ICC includes a centralized maintenance platform (CMP) to monitor the plurality of resources via centralized messaging and to determine resource failures by processing responses to the centralized messaging from each of the plurality of resources.