Patent ID: 8724784

Claim:
An apparatus for use on customer premises, the apparatus comprising: a first communication interface that directly and communicatively couples to a telephone line at the customer premises to receive a phone call intended for the customer, wherein the telephone line provides POTS (plain old telephone service) to the customer's premises; a second communication interface that communicatively couples to a local area network at the customer premises to communicate with a device, wherein the device is separate from the apparatus but is located at the customer premises and is operable to communicate with the apparatus via the local area network; and control logic communicatively coupled to the first and second communication interfaces, the control logic operable to: prior to receiving the phone call, broadcast a first message over the communication network, the first message identifying a communication service offered by the apparatus that provides caller identification information for incoming telephone calls via the local area network; receive, in response to the first message, a reply message from the device, the reply message requesting the communication service from the apparatus; subsequent to receiving the reply message from the device, process the phone call received on the telephone line to extract the caller identification information; generate a second message that includes the caller identification information identifying a caller who initiated the phone call; and transmit the second message including the caller information to the device via the local area network, wherein the device processes the second message to output the caller identification information to the customer on a display.