Patent ID: 7626978

Claim:
A method comprising the steps of: determining whether a called party's audio device is able to support at least one voice compression algorithm supported by a calling party's audio device based on messages sent between said called party's audio device and said calling party's audio device via a circuit switched network; if said called party's audio device is able to support said at least one voice compression algorithm, (a) compressing said voice signals, at the calling party's audio device, using at least one voice compression algorithm determined to be supported by both said called party's audio device and said calling party's audio device over a data network; (b) sending said compressed voice signals to said called party's audio device from said calling party's audio device via said data network; and (c) decompressing said compressed voice signals using said supported voice compression algorithm at said called party's audio device; and if the calling party's audio device and the called party's audio device use incompatible voice compression algorithms, maintaining the call on the circuit switched network.