Seamless operation of IP telephony requires the ability to initiate, redirect and reconfigure media connections in a fast and efficient manner. The reduction of "dead time" and quick response to user actions both demand that media operations be carried out as quickly as possible. For example, a caller might be redirected from an endpoint that does not answer to a voice messaging endpoint that answers automatically. A call may suspend media transfer when a user invokes "hold", then should re-establish media transfer quickly when the user re-joins the call. Similarly, media connections should be quickly reconfigured when a user activates a conference or is switched to an automatic announcement. Such capabilities are available to the simple endpoint type (SET) as described in Annex F of [ITU-T H.323].