Patent ID: 7649878

Claim:
A circuit control apparatus for establishing a connection to a communication partner via a public circuit network or via a computer network, the circuit control apparatus comprising: a specifying information storing part configured to store specifying information for specifying called parties to which the circuit control apparatus originates a call to establish a connection via the public circuit network; a checking part configured to check whether a telephone number of a called party exists in the specifying information storing part; a circuit control part configured to originated said call for establishing a connection to the called party; and a changing part configured to change specifying information in the specifying information storing part, wherein when the checking part determines that the telephone number of the called party exists in the specifying information storing part, the circuit control part originates said call to the called party via the public circuit network in order to connect to the called party, and originates another call to the called party via the computer network in the background in order to determine if a connection to the called party can be established via the computer network, and the circuit control part causes the changing part to delete the telephone number from the specifying information storing part if a connection to the called party can be established via the computer network, and when the checking part determines that the telephone number of the called party does not exist in the specifying information storing part, the circuit control part originates a call via the computer network to the called party, and when the circuit control part determines that the circuit control apparatus cannot connect to the called party via the computer network, the changing part adds the telephone number of the called party to the specifying information storing part, then, the circuit control part originates a call to the called party via the public circuit network.