Patent ID: 8125983

Claim:
An apparatus for managing calls in a telephone system having switch-accessed phones and voice over internet (VoIP) phones comprising: one or more controllers, each controller establishing a connection between a switched access port and VOIP port to enable communication between the two ports, said controller having one or more switched access ports, each switched access port having a plurality of classes and said plurality of classes having one or more classes with multiple states; one or more VOIP ports, each VOIP port having a plurality of classes; first and second finite state machines for connecting one of the switched access ports to one of the VOIP ports to establish communication between the switched access port and the VOIP port; the first finite state machine transitioning the switched access port from one class to another class and transitioning the switched access port in one class to a different state in the same class in response to port events or messages from the second finite state machine and for generating messages to the second finite state machine representative of transitions in the class of the switched access port and not of transitions between states within a class; the second finite state machine transitioning the VOIP port from one class to another class in response to port events and messages from the first finite state machine and for generating messages to the first finite state machine representative of transitions between classes of the VOIP port.