Patent ID: 8654961

Claim:
A method comprising: establishing, by a call handling device, call sessions between one or more local end devices and an external network, wherein the call handling device communicates with the one or more local end devices over one or more local interfaces and communicates with the external network over an external network interface, and the call sessions are established using a plurality of call session identifiers associated with the call handling device, each call session identifier of the plurality corresponding to a different telephone number; receiving a signal over a prioritized local interface at the call handling device, the signal indicating a request of a prioritized local end device to establish a prioritized call session; determining, by the call handling device and in response to the received signal, that each call session identifier in a subset of the plurality is in use, wherein the subset comprises multiple call session identifiers but includes less than all call session identifiers of the plurality; dropping a pre-existing call session using a call session identifier of the subset, wherein the pre-existing call session is dropped by the call handling device responsive to the determining and while a call session identifier of the plurality but not in the subset is free; and establishing the prioritized call session from the call handling device using the call session identifier in the subset that was in use by the dropped pre-existing call session.