Importance

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Abstract

A method of transmitting DTMF signals over a compressed computer network (24) comprises sending a packet containing a compressed DTMF signal followed by a confirmation packet. The confirmation packet preferably comprises an uncompressed DTMF signal which is transmitted on the same logical channel as the packets that represent voice signals. To detect the DTMF signal transmitted, a telephony Internet server (28) decompresses packets as they are received. If a packet appears to contain a compressed DTMF signal, the telephony Internet server looks for the presence of the confirmation packet before processing the previously received packet as a DTMF signal. In an alternative embodiment, the confirmation packet comprises a code that represents a DTMF signal. The packets that represent the voice signal and the code representing the DTMF signal are sent on separate virtual channels of the same logical channel. At a receiving end, data on one channel is directed by a separation logic block (114) to a speech decompressor (116) while another channel is directed to a DTMF signal generator (118) that generates a DTMF signal when a corresponding code is detected. The outputs of either the speech decompressor or the DTMF signal generator are applied to a receiving telephone (124).

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First Claim