Patent ID: 8893248

Claim:
A method for providing for media session policy compliance auditing and enforcement using a TURN server and session initiation protocol (SIP) signaling, the method comprising: at a SIP policy server including one or more processors, receiving SIP signaling from a user agent client (UAC) to determine a media policy for a media session, and, in response: generating at least one media session correlation token; communicating the at least one media session correlation token and the media policy from the SIP policy server to the UAC in a manner that forces the UAC to authenticate itself with a TURN server using the at least one media session correlation token and to the TURN server, which is separate from the SIP policy server, at least a portion of the media relay being implemented in hardware, wherein the TURN server relays media packets between the UAC and a second UAC; and communicating identification information for the TURN server to the user agent client; and at the TURN server, receiving the at least one media session correlation token from the SIP policy server and using the at least one token to correlate and store usage information for the media session and to monitor compliance with the media policy, wherein correlating and storing usage information includes associating the usage information with the media session and storing the correlated usage information.