Patent ID: 8090850

Claim:
A method for regulating network address translator (NAT) or firewall pinhole preservation traffic generated by a plurality of session initiation protocol (SIP) user agent clients (UACs) and sent towards a SIP entity located between the plurality of SIP UACs and a SIP registrar in a communications network, the method comprising: at the SIP entity, comprising one of a SIP proxy or a session border controller (SBC) and including one or more processors: maintaining a list of contact information for the plurality of SIP UACs registered with the SIP registrar, wherein the SIP UACs are behind at least one of a firewall and a NAT located between the SIP UACs and the SIP entity; determining a regular time interval for sending SIP messages from the SIP entity to the SIP UACs based on a number of the plurality of SIP UACs registered behind the at least one of the firewall and the NAT and a firewall pinhole timeout interval; iterating through the list of contact information to identify a corresponding SIP UAC and generating and sending a corresponding SIP message to the corresponding SIP UAC, wherein the SIP messages to the SIP UACs are separated by the regular time interval with respect to each other, wherein the SIP messages to the SIP UACs trigger SIP responses from the SIP UACs that are separated by the regular time interval with respect to each other.