Patent ID: 7978832

Claim:
A communicating apparatus for digitally encoding a speech signal by digital encoding means and sending the coded signal to an opponent station, thereby making VoIP speech communication and sending image data to the opponent station, comprising: discriminating means for discriminating whether the image data is sent to the opponent station through a gateway on an opponent station side; and communication control means for, when the image data is sent to the opponent station, in accordance with a result of said discriminating means that the image data is not sent through the gateway, selecting a first image communicating procedure by which the image data is not facsimile-modulated but sent to the opponent station on an IP network on the basis of a predetermined IP communication protocol by using an IP address of the opponent station obtained from a predetermined server on the basis of a telephone number of the opponent station, and in accordance with a result of said discriminating means that the image data is sent through the gateway, selecting a second image communicating procedure by which the image data is facsimile-modulated by a predetermined facsimile modulating method, an analog facsimile signal obtained by said facsimile modulation is digitally encoded by said digital encoding means, and subsequently, the digital coded signal is sent to the opponent station utilizing a PCM encoding method of at least 64 kbps through the gateway for executing analog/digital signal conversion between the IP network and a public line network, wherein in said second image communicating procedure, the digital encoding method of said digital encoding means is switched to the digital encoding method suitable for said facsimile modulating method, and a tone signal necessary for a facsimile communication procedure or the facsimile-modulated transmission image data is input to said digital encoding means.