An enhanced media gateway allows the signaling and media paths of a multimedia call to be merged so that signaling of a session and establishment of the media path may be coordinated. The enhanced media gateway may include a session border controller, gateway, router, and digital signal processors that operate in a coordinated fashion, so that information about the media path may be included in the signaling of the session, so that the media path may be directly established in connection with the session signaling, and so that bandwidth may be reserved in the router when the media path is established. This allows routing to be set up using media path signaling to obviate the use of a reservation protocol.