Patent ID: 8059667

Claim:
A method for applying a plurality of services to a call in a communications system, the method comprising: receiving, at one of a plurality of service dispatch and control (SDC) functions, a single signaling message associated with a call, wherein the signaling message includes a calling subscriber identifier; determining, at the SDC and based on the calling subscriber identifier, a plurality of call services associated with the subscriber identifier that is to be applied to the call and an order in which the plurality of services is to be applied; and communicating, in the order determined by the SDC function, plural messages, each including at least a portion of the signaling message, from the SDC function to a plurality of service platforms comprising IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) application servers and receiving, at the SDC function and from the IMS application servers, response for each of the plurality of call services and thereby sequentially applying the call services to the call, wherein communicating the plural messages includes: sending an encapsulated signaling message to a first service platform for applying a first call service to the call; receiving the encapsulated signaling message from the first service platform indicating that the first call service is applied to the call; and sending the encapsulated signaling message to a second service platform for applying a second call service to the call and wherein the encapsulated signaling message comprises an IP-encapsulated signaling message.