Patent ID: 7813335

Claim:
A system for routing IP-based calls through a backbone network to a carrier network, the system comprising: a core routing engine operable to receive a call setup request and identify one or more IP trunk groups through which the call setup request can be routed, based at least in part on a telephone number in the call setup request, the core routing engine further operable to select one of the one or more identified IP trunk groups and route the call setup request to an internal IP address associated with the selected IP trunk group; and an IP edge node associated with the internal IP address, the IP edge node in the backbone network and operable to receive the call setup request and route the call setup request to one of a plurality of IP addresses associated with a plurality of carrier edge nodes in the carrier network; a memory including a plurality of IP trunk group definitions, wherein the memory is accessible by one or more of the core routing engine and the IP edge node; and wherein each of the IP trunk group definitions comprises a data structure comprising: a first field designating an IP trunk group identifier; a second field designating an internal IP address associated with the first IP-based network; a third field designating an external IP address associated with the first IP-based network; a fourth field designating an IP address associated with the second IP-based network; a fifth field designating a group size; a sixth field designating a group route advance profile; an seventh field designating a signaling normalization profile; a eighth field designating a directionality indicator; a ninth field designating a hunt sequence; and a tenth field designating an allowable codecs indicator.