Patent ID: 7286488

Claim:
A communications network configuration for delivery of multimedia services to terminal devices, said communications network configuration comprising a packet network to which a plurality of terminal devices are connected, a service provider network for providing multimedia services to said terminal devices, a virtual circuit switched network provided intermediate said packet and service provider networks, and a gateway distributed over said virtual circuit switched network comprising a client application unit interfacing said virtual circuit switched network to said packet network and a virtual channel interface unit interfacing said virtual circuit switched network to said service provider network, wherein said client application unit is configured to bind one or more logical channels for a multimedia call requested by one of said terminal devices to association tags for respective virtual channels of said virtual circuit switched network and to forward said association tags to said virtual channel interfacing unit, and said virtual channel interfacing unit is configured to assign to said multimedia call one or more virtual channels associated with said association tags and to inform the client application unit of channel numbers for said one or more assigned virtual channels to thereby complete set up of the multimedia call.