Network telephony appliance and system for inter/intranet telephony

A system for digital signal processing over a network, comprising:

• a first network device and a second network device, each network device comprising a digital signal processor and one or more memory devices coupled to said digital signal processor, the one or more memory devices comprising:
• a first layer of instructions stored in said one or more memory devices of said digital signal processing subsystem operable to provide interrupt services and low-level functions,
• a second layer of instructions stored in said one or more memory devices of said digital signal processing subsystem comprising an operating system and instructions operable to perform process level functions, and
• a third layer of instructions stored in said one or more memory devices of said digital signal processing subsystem operable to perform application-specific tasks and high-level functions,
• wherein at least one of the network devices operates as a User Agent Client (UAC) to detect and initiate call sessions and perform call session control according to Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) functions and at least one of the network devices operates as a User Agent Server (UAS) to detect and receive call sessions and perform call session control according to SIP functions.