Patent ID: 7123697

Claim:
A method for providing a call answering service between a source telephone and a target telephone having access to a voice mail system, said method comprising: (a) receiving an unanswered call directed to the target telephone, said call having embedded therein an address of the target telephone, an address of the source telephone, an address of the voice mail system, and an indication as to whether or not the target telephone is busy; (b) if the target telephone is not busy, establishing an outgoing call to the target telephone; (c) conveying to the source telephone a response generated by the voice mail system, said response having embedded media parameters identifying the voice mail system; and (d) in response to an accept call instruction received from the target telephone, terminating said response and bridging all media between the source telephone and the target telephone, wherein at least one of the source and target telephones operates under VoIP.