Nortel Networks Corporation

Larry Dolinar

Michel Kallas

Jinchi Chu

Mike Lyell

A communications network includes packet-based networks that are coupled to various network elements. A method and apparatus is provided to implement telephony services in the communications network. The architecture for providing the telephony services may include several layers, including a network elements layer, an interface layer, and a services/application layer. The services/application layer is decoupled from the specific implementations of the network element layer so that a more flexible and convenient mechanism is provided to create telephony services. The telephony services may be implemented in software modules written in one of several possible languages, such as a telephony scripting language (TSL) or other language. The interface layer includes various components, including translation components to interpret and execute the modules that are in the services/application layer, communications components to provide mechanisms to send commands to network elements layer to perform the specified telephony services, and representation components that describe the functions, tasks, and other details associated with network elements.

Providing telephony services in a communications network

An apparatus and method are formed to add a header to a data packet being transmitted into a data packet network for a communication that is to be monitored. The header causes the data packet to be routed to a specified system node that contains monitoring equipment. The specified system node then forwards the data packet to an exit node. The header is stripped prior to exiting the data packet network to a destination system or device so that there will be no indication that the call was monitored. In an alternate embodiment, a duplicate packet is created wherein one packet is routed to a specified destination for the communication while the other data packet is routed to a node containing monitoring equipment.

Growing community of inventors

Richardson, TX, United States of America

Larry Dolinar