An adaptive telecommunications system for transporting communication traffic over a network comprising a means for transmitting communication traffic between a plurality of devices through a network, monitoring the communication traffic between the plurality of devices, and a adaptively changing the mode of operation either before and/or during a call, based on at least one of instantaneous network changes, connection type characteristics, and type of communication traffic. The devices attached to the network may consist of, for example, a fax machine, phone, mobile phone, public branch network exchange, a computer, or a switch. The traffic traveling across the system, voice, fax, or data, for example, may be compressed and/or restricted based on the type of traffic. The system may fully replace the existing PSTN circuits or may be used for overflow when the existing PSTN circuits are at near or full capacity.
An automated telecommunications backup system includes a first system operable to monitor a primary time division multiplexing (TDM) link on a TDM network for a failure condition and a second system operable to back up at least a portion of the telecommunications traffic of the TDM link over a backup network. The backup network may be a packet based network, an Internet protocol (IP) based network, a satellite based network, or an IP based system over a satellite network. The first system may continuously monitor the primary TDM link and switch the functionality thereof into circuit with the TDM link upon the detection of the failure condition. The second system may compress the telecommunications traffic of the TDM link to transmit a pre-designated number of time slots thereof.