A
mobile station provides arbitration and hand-off between two or more differently formatted computer and / or telecommunication networks. To facilitate the
mobile station arbitration and hand-off, the
mobile station operates at a given location in which it can communicate according to a first protocol via a first-access
system and at which it can communicate according to a second protocol via a second-access
system. At the given location, the mobile
station arbitrates between communicating real-time media according to the first protocol via the first-access
system and communicating real-time media according to the second protocol over the first protocol via the second-access system.To carry out the arbitration, mobile
station may be provisioned with one or more arbitration policies. Based on these arbitration policies, the mobile
station commits resources to carry on a communication session via a selected access system. When the arbitration policies comprise a preferred-network attribute, such as a preferred-network threshold, the mobile station arbitration may be performed by a comparison function. This comparison function may include ascertaining a preferred-network metric and communicating voice content according to the first protocol via the first-access system when the preferred-network metric surpasses the preferred-network threshold or communicating voice content according to the second protocol over the first protocol via the second-access system when the preferred-network metric does not surpass the preferred-network threshold.