Patent ID: 7912204

Claim:
A method of operating a communication system, the method comprising: installing a new network element and coupling egress routes to the new network element; querying the new network element to identify the egress routes that are coupled to the new network element and to identify external nodes that are coupled to the egress routes, and receiving a response from the new network element that identifies the egress routes that are coupled to the new network element and that identifies the external nodes that are coupled to the egress routes; querying a database with identifiers for the external nodes to identify telephone numbers that are associated with the external nodes, and receiving responses from the database that identify the telephone numbers that are associated with the external nodes; for each one of the telephone numbers that is associated with one of the external nodes, associating the one telephone number with ones of the egress routes that are coupled to the one external node and associating the one telephone number with the new network element; receiving a call to one of the telephone numbers, and in response, selecting the new network element and one of the egress routes that are associated with the one telephone number; routing the call to the new network element and routing the call from the new network element over the selected egress route.