Patent ID: 8468131

Claim:
A method of enabling direct communication between a service provider that is in communication with a PSTN (public switched telephone network) and a plurality of devices on a peer-to-peer network, said method comprising: selecting one of the plurality of devices on the peer-to-peer network for receiving all incoming invitations for media sessions directly from the service provider, the incoming invitations originating from an external network with which the service provider is communicating and being addressed to any one of the plurality of devices, wherein the peer-to-peer network does not include a PBX (private branch exchange) and each of the plurality of devices is configured to be used as a telephone; transmitting an incoming point registration message to the service provider indicating a unique address of the selected device to which all incoming invitations from the service provider are to be sent, the unique address being associated with a first identifier for at least one of the plurality of devices by the service provider, wherein only the selected device transmits the incoming point registration message; detecting when a capacity criteria of the selected device has been reached; and selecting, upon detection of the capacity criteria being reached, another one of the plurality of devices in place of the selected device to distribute a load associated with receiving all incoming invitations among the plurality of devices, the selected device receiving all subsequent incoming invitations for media sessions directly from the service provider upon detection of a reselection condition, the subsequent incoming invitations being addressed to any one of the plurality of devices, wherein the selected another device transmits a subsequent incoming point registration message to the service provider.