Patent ID: 7095838

Claim:
A method of handling calls in a telecommunication system comprising subscribers and network elements, comprising: storing in the system subscriber information including service definitions of a second subscriber; establishing connections to the second subscriber via a first network element having access to the subscriber information of the second subscriber; allowing a first subscriber to define in his subscriber information that his incoming calls are to be forwarded to the second subscriber; indicating the forwarding of a call and a caller's identity in a call establishment signaling; allowing the second subscriber to define a set of caller identities in a portion of the subscriber information stored in a service database accessed by a second network element for defining a set of allowed caller identities for incoming forwarded calls from another subscriber, said allowed caller identities being either those included in or excluded from the set, determining in the second network element whether the caller identity of an incoming forwarded call belongs to the allowed identities by comparing the caller identity with said set of caller identities, in response to receiving the call establishment signaling in the first network element and said first network element contacting said second network element, continuing to establish the incoming forwarded call if the caller identity belongs to the allowed identities or rejecting the incoming forwarded call if the caller identity does not belong to the allowed identities; in response to receiving call establishment signaling requesting establishment of a call from a third calling subscriber to the second subscriber and determining that the first subscriber has forwarded said first subscriber's calls to the second subscriber, forwarding the call to the second subscriber and incrementing a value of a call forwarding counter; and comparing the value of the call forwarding counter to a predefined value to determine whether the call is a forwarded call.