Patent ID: 7924849

Claim:
A method comprising: initiating, based on a first message, an IP telephony session between a calling party and a called party; allocating, at a first access control manager and based on the first message, a temporary IP proxy address to the called party, where the first access control manager links, by a first access point, an IP network, associated with the calling party and the called party, to a virtual asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) circuit; allocating, at a second access control manager, and based on a second message, a temporary IP proxy address to the calling party, where the second access control manager links, by a second access point, the IP network to the virtual ATM circuit; routing IP media traffic, during the session, between the calling party and the first access control manager; routing IP media traffic, during the session, between the called party and the second access control manager; and routing ATM media traffic, which is based on the IP media traffic, between the first access control manager and the second access control manager, where the first access control manager and the second access control manager are at least partially implemented in hardware.