Patent ID: 7606221

Claim:
A telephony communications arrangement, comprising: a unique internet-based private branch exchange providing telephone services and including a programmable processor circuit programmed to control the telephone services at the internet-based private branch exchange, the unique internet-based private branch exchange adapted to communicate to a remote location using packet-based communications on a packet-based network; and a plurality of packet-communicating endpoint Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) devices, each of which is adapted to communicate with the unique internet-based private branch using the packet-based network, wherein the packet-based network is also communicatively coupled to a plurality of other packet-based servers, and each packet-communicating endpoint device is configured and arranged to auto-discover the unique internet-based private branch exchange using broadcast message that identifies the endpoint and, in response to the broadcast message, receive an identifier for the unique internet-based private branch, and establish communication with the unique internet-based private branch exchange, and to distinguish, using the locator, the unique internet-based private branch exchange from the plurality of other packet-based servers for establishing packet-based communications between the packet-communicating endpoint device and the unique internet-based private branch exchange.