Patent ID: 7266182

Claim:
A method of implementing a public switched telephone network (PSTN) telephony service within a PSTN, the method comprising: tracking an availability of a plurality of paired voice markup language parsers and service processors, said tracking based upon a registering of said plurality of paired parsers and service processors with a session manager; receiving at a media gateway a call from a PSTN telephony switch, said media gateway connected directly to the PSTN via at least one circuit-switched connection; matching said received call at said media gateway to a voice markup language for implementing said PSTN telephony service, said matching based upon a dialed number inbound service (DNIS) of the received call; selecting an available one of the plurality of paired parsers and service processors for call processing; retrieving said voice markup language document from a data store at said media gateway; executing said retrieved voice markup language document to determine at least one PSTN functionality for implementing said PSTN telephony service; and conveying said functionality to at least one channel processor of the PSTN in a format usable by said at least one PSTN channel processor to implement said PSTN telephony service entirely within said PSTN without routing the call thorough a data communications network.