Patent ID: 8259704

Claim:
A media gateway, comprising: a non-packet switching matrix located in the media gateway and operable to switch non-packetized voice data; a packet switching matrix located in the media gateway and operable to switch packetized voice data; a plurality of processing resources located in the media gateway and coupled to the non-packet and packet switching matrices, each processing resource processing a substantially equal load of multimedia sessions processed by the media gateway without inactive protecting resources, wherein each of the plurality of processing resources located in the media gateway is configured to perform at least two of: voice encoding/decoding, echo cancellation, and signal conversion on a per session basis and wherein the non-packet switching matrix is operable to switch the non-packetized voice data between non-packet network interfaces of the media gateway and the processing resources located in the media gateway and wherein the packet switching matrix is configured to switch the packetized voice data to and from packet network interfaces of the media gateway and the processing resources located in the media gateway; and a control module located in the media gateway and coupled to the plurality of processing resources and operable to receive per session operational status data from the plurality of processing resources and, in response to receiving per session status data indicative of a failed processing resource, to redistribute the load of voice sessions of the failed processing resource among all of the remaining operational processing resources, wherein the media gateway is deployed in conjunction with a media gateway controller.