Patent ID: 8077834

Claim:
A method for routing a telephone call within a telecommunications network, comprising: receiving a telephone call from a first telephone being directed to a second telephone; determining if a user proximate the second telephone is speaking using a voice recognition unit in the second telephone; and routing the telephone call from the first telephone to a voice mail box associated with the second telephone when the user is speaking; wherein the determining if the user proximate the second telephone is speaking includes: comparing at least one word spoken proximate the second telephone to keywords stored in a memory of the voice recognition unit; and, indicating that the user proximate the second telephone is speaking when the comparison matches at least one of the words spoken proximate the second telephone to one of the stored keywords, wherein the indicating that the user proximate the second telephone is speaking includes generating a voice mailbox routing signal in the second telephone that is transmitted to a telephone switching center; wherein the voice mailbox routing signal is transmitted to the telephone switching center when the second telephone is not transmitting a voice signal to the switching center; wherein the voice mailbox routing signal is an RF voice mailbox routing signal.