Patent ID: 7295838

Claim:
A method for accessing information about local services offered by a facility, the method comprising the steps of: loading a facility-mode program and a profile for the facility in a memory associated with a user's portable device, wherein the profile includes a description of the local services, the services having respective telephones connected via a local area network of the facility, so that a call originating on the local area network to such a telephone may be completed on the local area network without accessing a wide area network; and executing the program on the user's portable device, so that the portable device is enabled to operate in a normal mode and a facility mode, wherein in the facility mode the user's portable device displays the services from the profile, so that the user can select among the services, and the user's portable device places a telephone call to a selected one of the service telephones solely over the local area network via a close-range, standard-protocol radio signal, and in the normal mode the user's portable device places calls to telephones on the wide area network, wherein the service telephones are connected via the local area network to the wide area telephone network, the wide area network including a wireless carrier network, and normal and local sub-modes of operation are enabled in the facility mode, wherein in the normal sub-mode of operation the user's portable device places the call to the selected service telephone via the wide area network.