Patent ID: 8355349

Claim:
A method for establishing a voice call between a plurality of chat participants comprising: receiving a first message from a first chat participant requesting establishment of a voice call; sending a response message to the first chat participant providing voice call session information and an authorization code; receiving a second message comprising the voice call session information and the authorization code from a second chat participant requesting participation in the voice call, wherein the first chat participant passes the voice call session information and the authorization code as a private message in a chat conversation to the second chat participant; setting up a first voice link to the first chat participant; setting up a second voice link to the second chat participant, wherein one of the first voice link and the second voice link is a public switched telephone network link; bridging the first voice link and the second voice link so as to establish the voice call between the first chat participant and the second chat participant; and wherein if the public switched telephone network link is unavailable: determining if a subscriber line portion of the public switched telephone network link is in current use in an internet session through a respective internet service provider access server, wherein the public switched telephone network link is capable of supporting one of a text chat and an other data connection; forwarding the voice call to a network node having access to the internet session; sending a third message to the internet session indicating an arrival of an incoming voice call; and converting the voice call to one of a streaming audio and an internet voice call.