Patent ID: 8116776

Claim:
A method for providing telecommunication service, comprising: transmitting a node identifier to a mobile station over a first network, wherein the first network supports a first communication protocol; receiving, at a device comprising a handoff server identified by the node identifier, a handoff call from the mobile station over a second network that supports a second communication protocol, wherein the handoff call includes a mobile station identifier; and in response to receiving the handoff call: identifying, based on the mobile station identifier, a first communication link over the first network; establishing, by the device, an alternative link through the handoff server to redirect a plurality of packets from the first communication link to the alternative link, the packets redirected from communication between a foreign agent of the first network and a home agent to the alternative link; initiating, over the second network, a second communication link with the mobile station; extracting routing information from media redirected from the first communication link identified by the mobile station identifier received over the second network; encapsulating media received over the second communication link by replacing one or more header fields of the media with the routing information extracted from media redirected from the first communication link; and transmitting the media received over the second communication link to a remote element identified by the extracted routing information.