Patent ID: 8464322

Claim:
A system of devices inside or outside an environment and communicatively coupled therewith, the system comprising: at least one outside endpoint outside the environment, each configured to perform a common communication task; a plurality of inside endpoints, each configured to perform the common communication task; a media gateway device communicatively coupled to the at least one outside endpoint, and the inside endpoints, and configured to aggregate data of the inside endpoints for the common communication task and communicate aggregated data, on behalf of all the inside endpoints, to the at least one outside endpoint; and a registrar configured to process an introduction of at least one of the plurality of inside endpoints to the environment, and during said introduction, to determine whether to modify existing configuration or configurations of an inside endpoint or endpoints already present inside the environment based on the inside endpoint to be introduced into the environment, wherein the registrar is further configured, during said introduction, to: instruct the at least one of the plurality of inside endpoints to use an aggregation communication mode in order to perform the common communication task, the aggregation communication mode facilitating aggregation of functionalities of the plurality of inside endpoints to support the performance of the common communication task; determine device characteristics associated with the at least one of the plurality of inside endpoints; and, based on the determined device characteristics, exclude from data that is associated with the common communication task and that is to be processed by the at least one of the plurality of inside endpoints a type of data that the inside endpoint does not support.