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Method and apparatus for establishing communications between packet-switched and circuit-switched networks
| Details |
Inventors: Kelly, Keith C.;
Assignee: NetSpeak Corporation (Boca Raton, FL)
Primary Examiner: Kizou; Hassan
Assistant Examiner: Pezzlo; John
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Kudirka & Jobse, LLP
A method and apparatus for enabling communication between packet-switched data networks and circuit-switched communication networks utilizes the existing domain name system infrastructure of the Internet to resolve traditional PSTN telephone numbers into domain names, and, using one or more domain name servers, locate the network protocol address of a gateway capable of connecting an executing task on the packet-switched data network to the desired terminating apparatus on the circuit switched communication network. Also disclosed is a gateway architecture capable of performing the cross network connections as well as domain name server architecture which stores the segments of a telephone number, such as country code, area code and exchange, in a hierarchical tree configuration. |
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DETAILED DESCRIPTION The invention describes a method and apparatus which allows communications between packet-switched data networks and traditional circuit-switched networks.
Specifically, calls originating from a IP-based network may be routed to a public switched telephone network or vice versa, using a technique which allows a traditional telephone number to be resolved to the IP address of an appropriate network gateway.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, a method for establishing communication between an executing task on a packet-switched data network and a terminating apparatus on a circuit-switched communication network comprises the steps of generating a telephone number domain name identifying a telephone number, supplying the telephone number domain name to a domain name server operatively coupled to the packet-switched network, obtaining a network protocol address of a gateway, and establishing a communication connection with the terminating apparatus identified by the telephone number domain name.
In one embodiment, the telephone number domain name includes a plurality of segments which represent carrier name, country code, area code, and exchange domain names, respectively.
In such embodiment, the method of obtaining the network protocol address of the appropriate gateway comprises the steps of recursively determining the network protocol addresses associated with each of the respective domain name segments of the telephone number domain name.
In accordance with a second aspect of the present invention, a computer program product for use with a computer system operatively coupled over a packet-switched data network to a domain name server, and at least one gateway comprises a computer useable medium having a program code embodied on the medium.
The program code comprises code for receiving data identifying a telephone number, code for generating a telephone number domain name, code responsive to the telephone number domain name for obtaining the network protocol address of a gateway, code for forwarding the telephone number domain name to the gateway, and code for communicating with the subscriber apparatus identified by the telephone numbers
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