Patent ID: 8170006

Claim:
A digital telecommunications system comprising: one or more voice communications devices, each at one of a plurality of communications network endpoints; an audio system at one of said plurality of communications network endpoints; and a softswitch managing communications between devices at said plurality of communications network endpoints, conversational communications parameters having a first overhead being selected for calls with said one or more voice communications devices, and messaging communications parameters having a second overhead lower than said first overhead being selected for communications with said audio system; and wherein said digital telecommunications system is a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) system, said audio system is a messaging system, said voice communications devices are VoIP communications devices; and wherein a first packet size and a first transfer rate is selected for conversational communications and a second packet size and a second transfer rate is selected for messaging communications with said messaging system, said second packet size being larger than the first packet size and said second transfer rate being lower than the first transfer rate.