Methods of establishing multimedia telecommunication (a multimedia "call") between equipment ("terminals"). More particularly, the invention provides methods for reducing the time required to establish calls between terminals that implement the ITU-T H.324 Recommendation and other Standards and Recommendations derived from or related to this such as the 3G-324M recommendation developed and adopted by the Third Generation Partnership Projects (3GPP and 3GPP2). More specifically, it relates to: (i) a method and apparatus for concatenating the H.245 messages that are required to pass between the terminals at the start of the call to establish the capabilities of both terminals and agree on the type and format of media and data to be exchanged; (ii) a method and apparatus for using non-standard H.245 messages or standard H.245 messages with non-standard fields to accelerate such establishment; (iii) a method and apparatus of informing each terminal of the capabilities of the other and proposing the type and format of media and data to be exchanged by means of any user-defined fields that are inserted in the call signaling protocol that is used for bearer establishment prior to the start of the H.324 stage of the call; and (iv) a method and apparatus of informing each terminal of the capabilities of the other and proposing and accepting the type and format of media and data to be exchanged by means of a burst of bits optionally encoded for error control on the bearer channel as soon as it is desired, preferably as the first information transmitted on the bearer channel.