Patent ID: 8576834

Claim:
A communication system for communicably coupling a subscriber terminal and a group of subscriber terminals via a network by use of internet protocol (IP) addresses, the communication system comprising: subscriber identification information identifying a subscriber; a group of subscriber terminals belonging to the subscriber identified by the subscriber identification information, the group of subscriber terminals being each assigned a different IP address and each configured to transmit a piece of position information of the each subscriber terminal; a server configured to communicably couple a plurality of subscriber terminals via the network; and a service system including: a user connection information table that stores a piece of position information in association with each of the group of subscriber terminals, and a registration-position priority table that stores a priority level in association with each piece of position information corresponding to one of the group of subscriber terminals, wherein upon receiving a piece of position information from one of the group of subscriber terminals, the server system stores the received piece of position information and information on the one of the group of subscriber terminals in the user connection information table; when a connection request is made by a first subscriber terminal outside the group of subscriber terminals to the group of subscriber terminals while a connection between a second subscriber terminal within the group of subscriber terminals and a third subscriber terminal outside the group of subscriber terminals is established, the service system extracts an unused IP address from among the IP addresses assigned to the group of subscriber terminals, by searching IP addresses assigned to the group of subscriber terminals in order that is determined based on pieces of position information associated with IP addresses in the user connection information table and priority levels assigned to the pieces of position information in the registration-position priority table; and the service system outputs the extracted unused IP address so that the server makes a call from the first subscriber terminal to a fourth subscriber terminal that has the extracted unused IP address in the group of subscriber terminals.