Packet voice telephony system and method

DETAILED DESCRIPTION In accordance with these and related desires, the present invention is directed to Applicant perceives as a useful, novel and nonobvious packet voice telephone and telephony system incorporating the same.
Consistent with a first embodiment of the present invention, the purely connectionless Layer 3 IP protocol is used to transfer streaming voice.
As such, the IP telephone of the first embodiment includes a controller and memory specifying the destination IP address or addresses, a packetizer coupled the controller and memory for packetizing outbound digitized voice into at least one outbound IP packet, and a network interface for transmitting the outbound IP network onto a network which may include the Internet.
Preferably, this IP phone also includes an extractor coupled to the memory and controller for extracting inbound digitized voice within an incoming IP packet whose source address correlates to the destination IP address or addresses stored in the memory.
By using base IP transmission protocol without TCP, UDP, or real time extensions, in this embodiment call setup and voice transmission operations are greatly simplified.
This feature enables the IP telephone controller to preferably comprise a finite state machine for directing bi-directional IP packet flow in a purely connectionless manner.
This finite state machine may be implemented by a programmed microntroller, or a synchronous network of discrete logic.
The IP telephone according to the first embodiment present invention preferably communicates with a phone server having a predetermined IP address in order to resolve user input into a viable destination IP address for establishing a call, as well as implement advanced call features such as forwarding and conferencing.
To establish the call, the IP telephone packetizer may transmit a predefined call request IP packet to this phone server using the predetermined IP address as the destination address.
The phone server will utilize a call model for resolving or verifying requested destination information specified by the user and contained in the data portion of the call request IP packet, and either issues a connection reply containing the resolved or verified destination IP address, or a connection error if the phone server is unable to decipher or confirm the desired destination information