Patent ID: 8160231

Claim:
A method of operating a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network comprising a VoIP network endpoint and a VoIP signaling server, wherein the VoIP network endpoint and the VoIP signaling server are coupled by a plurality of signaling tunnels, and wherein the VoIP network endpoint is coupled to other VoIP network endpoints by a plurality of bearer channels, the method comprising: in the VoIP network endpoint, receiving signaling from a plurality of telephonic devices that are each associated with one of a plurality of VoIP network customers and processing the signaling to generate corresponding Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) messages; in the VoIP network endpoint, transferring the SIP messages over the signaling tunnels to aggregate the SIP messages associated with same ones of the VoIP network customers on same ones of the signaling tunnels, wherein each of the tunnels is defined by a first network address for the VoIP network endpoint and a second network address for the VoIP signaling server; in the VoIP signaling server, receiving and processing the SIP messages to establish VoIP communication sessions for the telephonic devices; and in the VoIP network endpoint, receiving voice traffic from the telephonic devices and transferring the voice traffic over the bearer channels for the communication sessions.