Patent ID: 8768288

Claim:
A personal communications device providing a part of a personal communication system configured to facilitate communication between a WLAN device and a wide area network via the personal communications device, the personal communications device is a mobile telephone and the personal communications device comprising: a control path comprising: one or more functional modules, the one or more functional modules comprising a LAN interface module; and one or more interfaces for communicating, along the control path and to or from the one or more functional modules, command signals generated in response to user input at the WLAN device, the one or more interfaces comprising a LAN interface for communicating the command signals along the control path and to or from the LAN interface module; and a signal broker operatively connected to a monitored interface from among the one or more interfaces, the signal broker configured to: monitor command signals at the monitored interface; observe a first command signal of the first type at the monitored interface, the first command signal of the first type corresponding to activation of a first user-input button on the WLAN device and to permit the first command signal to pass through the monitored interface on the control path, thereby causing the mobile telephone to perform a first operation corresponding to the first user-input button; observe an alternate mode activation criterion at the monitored interface, the alternate mode activation criterion comprising a plurality of command signals of the first type corresponding to a plurality of activations of the first user-input button received at the monitored interface within a threshold temporal period and, in response to observing the alternate mode activation criterion, to inject an alternate mode signal into the control path, the alternate mode signal causing the mobile telephone to initiate an alternate mode communication over the wide area network via the mobile telephone, the alternate mode communication different than the first operation and different than a plurality of the first operations; and cause the mobile telephone to accept incoming telephone calls only from a member of an emergency contact list and when no call is in progress during the alternate mode communication and to otherwise not accept the incoming telephone calls during the alternate mode communication.