Patent ID: 8462925

Claim:
A method of connecting a calling party to a called party, the method comprising: receiving, from a first calling party, a first initiated call including a first calling party identifier and a first called party identifier corresponding to a first called party; determining a first carrier identifier and a first protocol ID corresponding to the first initiated call; determining a first canonical calling party identifier corresponding to the first calling party identifier; determining a first canonical called party identifier corresponding to the first called party identifier, the determination of the first canonical called party identifier being a function of the first canonical calling party identifier; determining a first set of one or more policies for connecting the first calling party to the first called party as a function of the first carrier identifier, the first protocol ID, the first canonical calling party identifier and the first canonical called party identifier; and completing the first initiated call, by connecting the first calling party to the first called party as per one or more of the determined policies in the first set.