Patent ID: 7266683

Claim:
A method comprising: providing a first media at an edge of a first local area network on which a first set of terminals of a first user community of an enterprise reside, the first set of terminals running a first set of local applications on behalf of which the first media aggregation manager is configured to act as a signaling and control proxy; providing a second media aggregation manager at an edge of a second local area network on which a second set of terminals of a second user community of the enterprise reside, the second set of terminals running a second set of local applications on behalf of which the second media aggregation manager is configured to act as a signaling and control proxy; reserving a predetermined portion of available bandwidth as a real-time bandwidth pool over a path through an enterprise network between the first media aggregation manager and the second media aggregation manager for real-time communication sessions between the first set of local applications and the second set of local applications sharing the real-time bandwidth pool among a plurality of real-time communication sessions by selectively admitting application sessions based upon currently available resources in real-time bandwidth pool; and securely communicating between the first user community and the second user community by selectively encrypting information associated with the plurality of real-time communication sessions.