Patent ID: 8229090

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving, at a network device, a telephone call from a caller; forwarding the telephone call to a proxy device; forwarding the telephone call, from the proxy device, to a first voice portal via session initiation protocol (SIP) signaling; determining that the telephone call should be transferred to a second voice portal, wherein the determining that the telephone call should be transferred to a second voice portal comprises: communicating with the caller via an interactive voice response unit, identifying, by the interactive voice response unit, information including a nature of the telephone call, and determining, by the interactive voice response unit, that the first voice portal is not an appropriate voice portal to service the telephone call based on the identified information; forwarding, by the first voice portal and in response to determining that the first voice portal is not the appropriate voice portal to service the telephone call, a transfer request to the network device using a SIP refer message; and forwarding, by the network device, the telephone call and the identified information to the second voice portal via SIP signaling.