Patent ID: 7689238

Claim:
An apparatus for providing advanced voice services in a wireless communications network, comprising: a wireless communications network for making calls to and from mobile units, wherein the calls are initiated by call setup and in-band signaling within the wireless communications network and voice frames for the calls are switched between the mobile units across bearer paths in the wireless communications network; and a real-time exchange that interfaces to at least one mobile switching center in the wireless communications network to provide the advanced voice services therein, without requiring any changes to the mobile switching center or other equipment of the wireless communications network to provide the advanced voice services, wherein the advanced voice services comprise Closed User Groups (CUGs) that allow a group of users to make and receive calls only to other members of the group of users, and calls outside of the group of users are disallowed; wherein both the real-time exchange and the mobile units that use the advanced voice services communicate with each other using the call setup and in-band signaling within the wireless communications network to provide the advanced voice services for the mobile units, such that at least one mobile switching center routes an originating leg of the advanced voice services from an originating mobile unit to the real-time exchange, the real-time exchange initiates one or more terminating legs of the advanced voice services to one or more terminating mobile units through at least one mobile switching center, and the real-time exchange switches the voice frames for the advanced voice services from the originating mobile unit to the terminating mobile units across the bearer paths and through at least one mobile switching center.