Patent ID: 7457242

Claim:
A method of operating a buffer mechanism that is activated when there is an unavoidable pause in delivery of data to a receiving device over a communication connection from an originating device to said receiving device exclusively over an IP-based network comprising: transmitting data packets, containing encoded speech signals received from said originating device, from a port circuit serving said originating device to said destination device via a communication connection established on said IP-based transmission medium using a packet transmission protocol that does not retransmit lost or damaged packets; detecting when a pause in data delivery is necessary; determining an effect that pauses at specific points in the delivery of data would have on performance of the receiving device; managing buffering and subsequent delivery of data exclusively over said communication connection on said IP-based network to the receiving device, such that pauses in the data delivery occur at locations that would have a minimal impact on the performance of the receiving device; and activating, independent of said packet transmission protocol and in response to a transmitted packet being lost or damaged, said port circuit to retrieve the packet from said transmit buffer for retransmission to said destination device on said existing- communication connection on said IP-based network.