Patent ID: 7738479

Claim:
A method of providing communications comprising: forwarding a message from a universal address book server via a plurality of communications channels associated with an addressee of the message based on a priority of the message, wherein forwarding the message further comprises: providing a prioritized list of the communication channels indicating different orders in which the communication channels are to be used to forward the message based on the priority of the message; wherein forwarding comprises transmitting respective separate messages via the plurality of communications channels; wherein transmitting further comprises: transmitting each of the respective separate messages to respective ones of the plurality of communications channels after expiration of a respective time interval unless a response to a previously transmitted separate message is received by the universal address book server before expiration of the respective time interval for the previously transmitted separate message; wherein the respective time intervals associated with the respective separate messages comprise different time intervals; and wherein higher priority messages are assigned shorter time intervals and lower priority messages are assigned longer time intervals.