Patent attributes
A method for improving the sound quality of voice signals transmitted during a call between two digital wireless telephones by diverting the call from a circuit switched network to a data network is disclosed. In accordance with the present invention, a call setup procedure using the circuit switched network is modified so that the calling party may determine the following information: 1) whether the called party's digital wireless telephone is able to support one of the voice compression algorithms supported by the calling party's digital wireless telephone and 2) whether both wireless telephones have access to the same data network. If the called party's digital wireless telephone is able to support one of the voice compression-algorithms supported by the calling party's digital wireless telephone and both wireless telephones have access to the same data network, the circuit switched network call setup procedure is abandoned before the called party answers the call and the call is completed using the data network. Completing the call by encoding voice signals using a common voice compression algorithm executed by the digital wireless telephones and by sending the encoded voice signals through a data network eliminates the drawbacks associated with the additional intermediate encoding which would have been required if the call had been completed using the circuit switched network.

