Patent ID: 6999448

Claim:
A communications apparatus, comprising: a communications server operable to service physical circuits established over a continuous circuit telephony system, said communications server including: an interface operable to interconnect said server to a continuous circuit telephony system; a computer network interface operable to interconnect said server to a computer network; a voice response application module operable to provide communications services; a port interface library module in communication with said voice response application module and operable to assign a server port to a virtual communications channel established over said computer network, wherein a first server port is assigned to a virtual channel established over said computer network, and wherein a second server port is assigned to a channel established over said continuous circuit telephony system; an Internet protocol interface process module interconnected to said computer network interface and to said port interface library module, wherein said Internet protocol interface process module communicates with said port interface library module using a first set of commands expressed in a non-packet based format, wherein said first set of commands in a non-packet based format includes commands to reproduce voice data provided by said voice response application module, wherein said Internet protocol interface process module communicates with said computer network interface using a second set of commands expressed in a packet-based format, and wherein said second set of commands expressed in a packet-based format includes commands to reproduce voice data provided by said voice response application module; and a continuous circuit telephone system device driver interconnected to said continuous circuit telephony system interface and to said not interface library module, wherein said continuous circuit telephony system interface communicates with said port interface library module using said first set of commands.