Abstract: An apparatus and method for increasing available ports on a voice router is provided. A first gateway and a second gateway are assigned a single port number for a data stream, the direction of packet flow is identified to determine a destination gateway. The destination gateway is one of the first and second gateways, depending on the direction of the packet flow. The packets are then forwarded to the destination gateway. The voice router can further consolidate RTCP streams from a plurality of gateways into a single port on the voice router.

Abstract: A software phone (“softphone”) application enables a user to make a phone call from a computing device user Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). While the functionality of the softphone remains the same, its appearance is defined by a skin that can be changed. A server stores a profile for users of the softphone. Based on the user profile, the server selects a skin and pushes the skin to the user's softphone, thereby changing the appearance of the softphone. The skin can include advertisement and can include several layers that can be displayed simultaneously. Some of the layers are static, and some of the layers are animated.