Patent ID: 7106843

Claim:
A method, provided by an institutional telephone system, of managing telephone activity between a calling party and a called party, wherein the calling party is an institutional party and the called party is a non-institutional party, the method comprising: providing an account for the calling party, wherein the account comprises calling party entitlements, at least some entitlements based on the calling party's class; creating an institutional communication connection with an institutional terminal following initiation by the calling party, wherein the institutional communication connection comprises an external communication request from the calling party, the communication request sufficient to establish communication between the calling party and the called party; identifying the calling party; analyzing the external communication request received from the calling party to determine its called party parameters; comparing the called party parameters to the calling party entitlements to determine whether the calling party is entitled to communicate with the called party and denying the external communication request if the comparing returns a negative result; determining whether the account is active and denying the external communication request if the determining returns a negative result; placing the calling party on hold; establishing communication with the called party; calculating a rate to charge the called party for the communication; announcing the rate to the called party; prompting the called party for acceptance or refusal of the rate; receiving a response from the called party; and establishing communication between the calling party and the called party based on the response.