Patent ID: 7738400

Claim:
A method, comprising: a first telecommunication system at a first facility communicating, via digital telephony, over a data network with a second telecommunication system at a second facility, wherein the first and second telecommunication systems include first and second pluralities of interconnected telephones, respectively; and wherein, prior to the communicating, the first telecommunication system has been configured for communication with the second telecommunication system according to a digital telephony solution, wherein the digital telephony solution is based, at least in part, on a determination of call traffic patterns between the first and second facilities and a determination of performance characteristics of the data network, wherein the digital telephony solution specifies an amount of bandwidth needed for communicating between the first and second telecommunication systems, and wherein configuring the first telecommunication system includes programming a first gateway within the first telecommunication system to transmit digital telephony signals to the second telecommunication system using a dedicated portion of bandwidth of the data network, wherein the dedicated portion supplies the amount of bandwidth specified by the digital telephony solution.