Patent ID: 8463914

Claim:
A method for facilitating rapid establishment of a voice communications link over an Internet Protocol (IP) based network between a target call provider coupled to the IP network and one of a plurality of call-host endpoints, each of the plurality of endpoints configured to provide human-interactive media application services and being coupled to the IP network through at least one network interface, the method comprising: transmitting a call request to a connection proxy, the call request specifying the target call provider and specifying link characteristics including those application services being requested; and facilitating the establishment of a voice communications link between the target call provider and a selected one of the plurality of endpoints in response to the call request, said facilitating further comprising: selecting one of the endpoints based on an appropriate match between the specified link characteristics of the call request and state information being maintained for each of endpoints, the state information connoting a last known operational status of each of the endpoints, the last known operational status indicating a capability of each of the endpoints to accept the call request; forwarding the call request from the connection proxy to the selected endpoint; returning a response to the connection proxy from the selected endpoint, the returned response indicating a current capability of the selected endpoint to accept the call request based on its current operational status; updating the state information for the selected endpoint based on the current operational status indicated by the returned response; and establishing the voice communications link between the target call provider and the selected endpoint when the returned response indicates that the selected endpoint accepts the call request.