Patent ID: 7272134

Claim:
An Internet telephone connection method for use on the Internet comprising plural zones, which includes gateway devices each for mutually connecting a PSTN (public switch telephone network) and the Internet, gate keepers each provided for each zone and each for managing the gateway devices in a corresponding zone, and a bandwidth controller for managing the gate keeper in each zone, wherein: each of said gate keepers have a device status managing table in which status information of the gateway device in the corresponding zone as well as the status information of gateway devices managed by other gate keepers in other zones are registered; said bandwidth controller has a bandwidth reservation schedule table in which communication bandwidth and two gateway devices using this communication bandwidth for communication are registered with a reservation time zone, so as to determine a communication bandwidth to be reserved and two gateway devices communicating with each other using this communication bandwidth, according to said bandwidth reservation schedule table and information obtained from said device status managing table, said bandwidth controller configured to transmit a bandwidth reservation request for the communication bandwidth thus determined to the two gateway devices thus determined; and each of said gateway devices reserves the communication bandwidth with a counterpart gateway device according to the bandwidth reservation request, wherein: when call request is made from a calling side PSTN terminal in a PSTN to a called side PSTN terminal in another PSTN, a calling side gateway device which is connected to the PSTN at the calling side notifies the telephone number of a call destination to said gate keeper managing the calling side gateway device to determine the corresponding called side gateway device, and the calling side and called side PSTNs are connected via the Internet by using the communication bandwidth reserved between the calling side gateway device and the called side gateway device, thereby connecting the calling side PSTN terminal to the called side PSTN terminal.