Patent ID: 7545916

Claim:
A method of placing an emergency telephone call using customer premises equipment at a customer premises, the method comprising: providing a data connection between the customer premises equipment at the customer premises and a data network; detecting a request for an emergency call being placed from the customer premises equipment; responsive to detecting the request for an emergency call, retrieving an address for a public safety answering point corresponding to the customer premises wherein the address for the public safety answering point is retrieved from memory at the customer premises; and after retrieving the address for the public safety answering point, establishing a voice communication between the customer premises equipment and the public safety answering point corresponding to the customer premises wherein establishing the voice communication between the customer premises equipment and the public safety answering point comprises, attempting to establish the voice communication between the customer premises equipment and the public safety answering point over the data connection between the customer premises equipment and the data network, after attempting to establish the voice communication over the data network when voice communication can be established over the data network, establishing the voice communication between the customer premises equipment and the public safety answering point over the data connection between the customer premises equipment and the data network, and after attempting to establish the voice communication over the data connection when the voice communication cannot be established over the data network, establishing the voice communication between the customer premises equipment and the public safety answering point over a public switched telephone network line at the customer premises.