Patent ID: 8451988

Claim:
A system comprising: a text message system of an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) network; the text message system comprising: a capability system operable to identify capability data for an IMS wireline phone that indicates the capability of the IMS wireline phone for handling text messages; and a message forwarding system operable to receive a text message intended for the IMS wireline phone that has registered for service with the IMS network, to process the capability data for the IMS wireline phone to determine if the IMS wireline phone is capable of handling text messages, to append the text message to a caller identifier (ID) header of a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) message responsive to a determination that the IMS wireline phone is not capable of handling text messages, and to forward the SIP message to the IMS wireline phone to display the text message on a caller ID unit associated with the IMS wireline phone.