Patent ID: 6983329

Claim:
Method for establishing a connection between a calling party and a called party in a H.323 network wherein gatekeepers are arranged in a hierarchical manner, the method comprising: receiving by a first gatekeeper a Set-up command issued from a connected calling user, performing a user location algorithm by said first gatekeeper on its locally attached users, if this algorithm fails, sending a Location Request message to its lower level gatekeepers, wherein each lower level gatekeeper performs a user location algorithm on its attached users and lower level gatekeepers, if these user location algorithms fail, sending a Location Request message to its higher level gatekeeper, which performs a user location algorithm on its attached users and gatekeepers except the originating gatekeeper, if one of the user location algorithms succeeds, the gatekeeper concerned sending a Location Confirm message to the first gatekeeper, the first gatekeeper sending a Set-up message to the gatekeeper which has issued the Location Confirm message, which gatekeeper forwards said Set-up message to the called user, whereupon said connection is established.