Patent ID: 8199743

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a plain old telephone system, POTS, line interface adapted to facilitate telephony communications via a POTS line provided by a public switched telephone network; a telephone terminal interface associated with the POTS line interface and adapted to facilitate telephony communications with a POTS-based telephone terminal such that incoming and outgoing POTS calls can be established with the POTS-based telephone terminal over the POTS line via the POTS line interface and the telephone terminal interface; a packet network interface adapted to facilitate packet communications; and a control system associated with the POTS line interface, the telephone terminal interface, and the packet network interface and adapted to: intercept outgoing POTS signaling for an outgoing POTS call when the POTS line is busy; determine outgoing POTS signaling information from the outgoing POTS signaling; and send the outgoing POTS signaling information to a service node via the packet network interface to initiate an enhanced service associated with the POTS call.