Patent ID: 8150377

Claim:
A method of maintaining a communication policy in a voice telephony network having a policy server and a plurality of subscriber devices comprising the steps of: maintaining, in a memory of said policy server, a communication policy comprising at least one identifier representing whether reception of a voice call having said at least one identifier is permissible at said subscriber devices; maintaining, in said memory of said policy server, a trust policy comprising an indicator representing one of at least three levels of trust respective to each one of said subscriber devices; each of said levels of trust representing a different allowability of modifying said communication policy; receiving, at a network interface associated with said policy server, a request to modify said communication policy from said one of said subscriber devices; retrieving, at said policy server, said indicator respective to said one of said subscriber devices from said trust policy maintained in said memory; and, selecting, at said policy server, from a plurality of modification-procedures maintained in said memory, a modification-procedure for said communication policy according to said request and said indicator; wherein said modification-procedure comprises one of an alert for a system administrator that comprises a report of said request, and a vote to modify said communication policy such that if a predetermined number of said votes are received from a plurality of said subscriber devices then said communication policy is automatically modified in accordance with said request; and wherein said indicator is expressed as a percentage and said vote is selected if said indicator has a value of less than twenty percent.