Patent ID: 8451716

Claim:
A method, performed in a session router, for routing call signaling messages, the method comprising: maintaining a telephony route information base (TRIB) stored in the session router as a result of participation of the session router in telephony routing over internet protocol (TRIP), the TRIB allowing multiple routes to the same destination; using the TRIB to route the received call signaling messages to another session router; receiving a signaling message that establishes a session between an originating endpoint and a terminating endpoint; responsive to the received signaling message: searching the TRIB for more than one route having a destination field matching the terminating endpoint in the received signaling message; comparing at least one attribute of each matching TRIB route with a field in the received signaling message to determine a degree of match for the attribute; selecting, based at least on the comparison, one of the matching TRIB routes; and forwarding the signaling message to a second session router identified by a next hop attribute in the selected TRIB route; wherein the signaling message comprises a session-layer header containing a From: field corresponding to the originating endpoint and a To: field corresponding to the terminating endpoint and the forwarding further comprises: replacing the To: field in the session-layer header of the signaling message with the next hop attribute in the selected TRIB route; and transmitting the signaling message to the another session router; and wherein the signaling message comprises a session description containing a connection field corresponding to the originating endpoint and the forwarding further comprises: replacing the connection field in the session description of the signaling message with a next hop attribute from the selected TRIB route.