Patent ID: 8634409

Claim:
A computer-implemented method, comprising: automatically detecting at a media gateway whether an IP telephony service is available to a client, the media gateway being operable to provide separate telephony, data and video service to a local area network, the video service being received as an independent service separate from data service from a service provider; and selecting between the IP telephony service and a secondary telephony service based on one or more specified telephony connection conditions existing at the media gateway; transmitting from the media gateway a multimedia signal based on audio received from the selected telephony service as a result of subscribing to a telephone service, data received as a result of subscribing to a data service, and video received as a result of subscribing to a video service; wherein a plurality of clients are communicatively coupled to the transmission and operable to receive the transmission and produce the multimedia signal for a subscriber; wherein the IP telephony service and the secondary telephony service are simultaneously coupled to a home telephone network via the media gateway using the same transmission medium, the IP telephony service and the secondary telephony service operating at different frequency ranges.