Patent ID: 7046637

Claim:
The method of real-time multipoint, multimedia conference and collaborative services integrated with a hybrid fiber coaxial cable network including one or more cable modem servers and using ATM modems and an ATM wide area network using a central ATM server and one or more ATM access network domains and having a CM-ARQ control and signaling message of a CMsig scheme, comprising: initializing the CM-ARQ control and signaling message; determining if a call is received by the central ATM server or a cable modem server; determining whether an addresses of all calling and called end points of a conference call reside in a same ATM access network domain; sending details of a conference to a central ATM server from a cable modem server; computing a bandwidth requirement algorithm for the HFC network; and routing a calling party's call to the central ATM server if an addresses of calling and called end points do not reside in a same ATM access network domain by relaying a CM-ARQ control and signaling message of a CMsig scheme.