Patent ID: 7245612

Claim:
A method of processing a telephone call from a calling station to a called station that is busy as a result of having established a data connection to a data network via an access server, the method comprising steps of: receiving the call at a telephone network switch; responsive to the called station being busy, forwarding the call to a call-waiting application server; and responsive to receiving the call at the call-waiting application server, sending a data message to computer equipment at the called station used to establish the data connection, to notify a subscriber at the called station of an incoming call and providing a selection of call treatment options to the subscriber, comprising steps of: a) storing at a registration server a complete copy of a subscriber profile for each subscriber to the system, the profile defining subscriber pre-selected preferences for incoming call processing options and call treatments; b) registering the subscriber at the registration server when the subscriber establishes the data connection to the data network via the access server; c) accepting at one of a plurality of application servers, the telephone call placed to the subscriber by a caller from the calling station, when the subscriber's telephone line is busy, the application server establishes a data connection to the registration server to retrieve a copy of the subscriber profile when the telephone call is accepted, and inspects the subscriber profile to determine how the incoming call should be processed based upon the pre-selected subscriber preferences.