Patent ID: 8243717

Claim:
A telephony device comprising: a user interface operable to present information to the user and to receive indications from the user; a network interface operable to couple to a network; a memory maintaining a routing table; a low level processing module operable to control the user interface and the network interface in response to native commands; and a state engine operable to: load a plurality of text commands; interpret the text commands to determine selected ones of the native commands; provide the determined native commands to the low level processing module; load and execute a series of the plurality of text commands that generate multicast discovery messages to develop entries in the routing table, the entries mapping network addresses for end points to telephone numbers for the end points and wherein a portion of the text commands specify actions and an other portion of the text commands specify one or more event handlers, detect an event corresponding to one of the event handlers to process the event, wherein the matching event handler comprises a link to one or more of the plurality of text commands; request the text commands from a server; receive the text commands from the server, a portion of the text commands specifying actions and an other portion of the text commands specifying one or more event handlers; and interpret the text commands to determine selected ones of the native commands for implementing the actions and to provide the determined native commands to the low level processing module.