Patent ID: 7650140

Claim:
A method of maintaining a communication policy in a voice telephony network having a policy server and a plurality of subscriber devices comprising the steps of: maintaining, in a memory of said policy server, a communication policy comprising at least one identifier representing whether reception of a voice call having said at least one identifier is permissible at said subscriber devices; maintaining, in said memory of said policy server, a trust policy comprising an indicator representing a level of trust respective to one of said subscriber devices; said level of trust representing an allowability of modifying said communication policy; receiving, at a network interface associated with said policy server, a request to modify said communication policy from said one of said subscriber devices; retrieving, at said policy server, said indicator from said trust policy maintained in said memory; selecting, at said policy server, from a plurality of modification-procedures maintained in said memory, a modification-procedure for said communication policy according to said request and said indicator; determining whether said communication policy is subject to modification upon performance of said modification-procedure; and, performing an operation to update said indicator according to results of said determining step, wherein said operation decreases said indicator if said communication-policy is not subject to modification and increases said indicator if said communication-policy is subject to modification.