Patent ID: 7486665

Claim:
A method of operating a network device connected to receive and transmit signals from and to both a circuit-switched network and a packet-switched network, the method comprising steps of: receiving, from the circuit-switched network, a telephony signal containing a voice signal component representing voice signals and a Dual Tone Multi Frequency (DTMF) signal component representing at least one DTMF tone; determining if a duration of the DTMF signal component is less than a predetermined duration; formatting a DTMF packet to represent at least the DTMF signal component, the DTMF packet including information indicating a duration of at least a minimum amount for the DTMF signal component if the DTMF signal component was less than the predetermined duration; transmitting the formatted data packet on the packet-switched network; formatting an audio data packet to represent the audio signal components; determining if a time of expected playback of the DTMF packet would overlap with a time of expected playback of the audio data packet; dropping portions of the audio data packet; and transmitting the audio data packet onto the packet network.