Patent ID: 7146158

Claim:
A wireless communication unit operable to reformat dialed numbers according to dialing plans for a plurality of communication networks, the wireless communication unit comprising: a transceiver configured to communicate over a wireless local area network (LAN) and a wireless wide area network (WAN), wherein the LAN has a LAN dialing plan and the WAN has a WAN dialing plan; a user interface operable to provide a number corresponding to a target unit to be called; a controller, coupled to the transceiver and the user interface, configured: to select a communication network from among the wireless LAN communication network and the wireless WAN communication network by determining which of the wireless LAN communication network and the wireless WAN communication network the wireless communication unit is located, wherein the selected communication network is a home wireless LAN having a home wireless LAN dialing plan and wherein the selected communication network will be used to place a call to the target unit; to select a set of reformatting rules corresponding to the dialing plan of the selected communication network wherein the set of reformatting rules is one of a plurality of sets of reformatting rules; to reformat the number according to the reformatting rules when the number is an abbreviated number that is compatible with the home wireless LAN dialing plan to provide the number with appended home network digits as the reformatted number; and to place the call to the target unit using the reformatted number over the selected one of the wireless LAN and the wireless WAN communication network, and a memory that is arranged to store the reformatting rules.