Patent ID: 6856612

Claim:
A method for routing a call between an originating station and a terminating station in a communication network that includes one or more packet switched legs, a first visited network associated with said terminating station and a second visited network associated with said originating station, said first and second visited networks each having a voice gateway, comprising the steps of: evaluating call information associated with said call at a call control point; routing said call to said terminating station directly over one of said one or more packet switched legs to said first visited network based on said call information such that a quality level of said call is optimized by negotiating an end-to-end encoding between said originating station and said terminating station, wherein said negotiating further comprises: first signaling using out-of-band signaling within said one of said one or more packet switched legs; and second signaling using inband signaling through said first and second voice gateways away from said one of said one or more packet switched legs.