Patent ID: 7245589

Claim:
A method of operating a media gateway in a telecommunications system, said gateway providing bearer paths for communication traffic between network segments via contexts, each context including a collection of terminations that link the gateway to the network segments and a topology that defines the bearer paths between the terminations within the context, the method comprising: (a) receiving a new topology for one of the contexts within the gateway, said received topology defining a desired pattern of bearer paths between the terminations included in the context; (b) comparing the received topology to a current topology for the context, said current topology defining a currently existing pattern of bearer paths between the terminations included in the context; (c) based upon the comparison of step (b), determining which terminations within the context are to be disconnected from one another; (d) disconnecting terminations within the context from one another in accordance with the determination of step (c); (e) comparing the received topology to the current topology for the context; (f) based on the comparison of step (e), determining which terminations within the context are to be connected to one another; and, (g) connecting terminations within the context to one another in accordance with the determination of step (f).