Patent ID: 7380011

Claim:
A method for per-session network address translation (NAT) learning in a media gateway, the method comprising: in the media gateway: (a) receiving a media session setup request for establishing a media session in which media packets are exchanged between communicating entities; (b) in response to the media session setup request, assigning a local network and transport address combination identifying a media processing resource within the media gateway for processing the media packets associated with the media session; (c) receiving at least one initial media packet of the media packets exchanged between the communicating entities in the media session, the at least one initial media packet being addressed to the local network and transport address combination and having a source network address and a source transport address, each of the source network address and the source transport address being a NAT-translated address assigned by a network address translator; (d) learning the NAT-translated source network address and the NAT-translated source transport address from the at least one initial media packet; (e) processing the at least one initial media packet using the media processing resource assigned to the media session; (f) accepting and processing subsequent media packets having the assigned local network address and local transport address in their destination address fields and the learned source network address and the learned source transport address in their source address fields; and (g) repeating steps (a)-(f) for each new incoming session to the media gateway and thereby performing NAT learning on a per-session basis.