Patent ID: 8094556

Claim:
A method, comprising: (a) receiving, at a common receiving node, first and second packets, the first and second packets having common packet durations as well as at least one of common timestamps and common sequence numbers, the first packet being received in a first media stream and the second packet being received in a second different media stream; (b) writing, by a processor, the first packet to a first buffer; (c) writing, by the processor, the second packet to a second buffer; and (d) selecting, by a control module, at least one of (i) a time to read each of the first and second packets from the first and second buffers, respectively, and (ii) which of the first and second packets to read, wherein, in (ii), only one of the first and second packets is used to fill a gap in a data stream; and wherein the first and second packets have common source and destination address pairs, wherein a payload of the first packet has a first level of compression, wherein a payload of the second packet has a second level of compression, wherein the first level of compression is less than the second level of compression, and wherein the payload types of the first and second packets are the same; and wherein the first packet is transmitted over a packet-switched network and the second packet is transmitted over a circuit-switched network, wherein (ii) is selected, wherein the first packet is read from a first queue corresponding to the first buffer and the second packet is not read from a second queue corresponding to the second buffer, and wherein the second packet is removed from the second queue at substantially the same time that the first packet is read from the first queue.