Apparatus and method for optimizing the use of multiple gateway in ToL systems

摘要

A system and method for a gatekeeper (108) to multicast commands to all gateways (106) in the system. The gateways (106) listen for one of their peer gateways (106) to accept. If one accepts, then the other gateways ignore the pending call request. The gatekeeper (108) making the request can specify an order in which the gateways (106) are to respond to its request. The order may be based on a variety of factors, such as number of calls presently being handled by a particular gateway (106) or cost of calls. Further, the gateways (106) may be provided with timers to process a call request in the requested order if a gateway (106) earlier in the queue fails to respond.