Patent ID: 7688959

Claim:
A method for connecting a user of a remote telephone to a secure telephone network comprising the steps of: providing a secure telephone network having a plurality of network extensions, said secure telephone network capable of being accessed by a remote telephone; providing one or a plurality of remote telephones capable of accessing said secure telephone network; providing a registry connected to the secure telephone network, said registry comprising at least one registry entry comprising a matched pair comprising one electronic serial number (ESN) identifying a remote telephone and one personal identification numbers (PINs) identifying a user, wherein each said ESN is found in a plurality of matched pairs and each said PIN is found in a plurality of matched pairs, and a connection policy specifying, for each network extension, access times when access is permitted and each matched pair authorized to obtain access and for each ESN-PIN matched pair, access times when access is permitted and each network extension to which the matched pair is authorized to obtain access; transmitting a connection request to the secure telephone network, said connection request comprising a specified ESN-PIN matched pair; searching the registry for a registry entry containing ESN-PIN matched pair transmitted in the connection request; and taking one action of a group consisting of: in response to not finding a registry entry for the transmitted ESN-PIN matched pair, denying access by the remote telephone to the secure telephone network and in response to finding a registry entry for the transmitted ESN-PIN matched pair, applying the connection policy to the connection request and taking one action of a group of actions comprising denying access to the secure telephone network where a request for access is not permitted by the connection policy and granting access to the secure telephone network only to the extent permitted by the connection policy.