Patent ID: 7995736

Claim:
A method for routing local calls comprising: provisioning a core routing engine (CRE) with a plurality of routing instructions, wherein each provisioned routing instruction specifies at least whether off-net routing is permissible for local calls; receiving a call; analyzing signaling information associated with the received call to determine a customer identifier associated with the received call and a dialed number associated with the received call; using at least the dialed number to determine whether the received call is a local call or a long distance call; if the received call is a local call, then using at least the customer identifier to determine specific routing instructions for the received call from one of the plurality of routing instructions; if off-net routing is permitted by the specific routing instructions, selecting between an on-net route or an off-net route for routing the received call; and if off-net routing is not permitted by the specific routing instructions, selecting an on-net route for routing the received call.