Patent ID: 8917843

Claim:
A method performed by a call control unit for controlling incoming and outgoing calls at a user's premise, the method comprising: receiving an indication of an incoming call at a call control unit communicatively coupled to or resident within a telephone, the call control unit being located at the user's premise and positioned between a telecommunication service provider providing the incoming call and the telephone, the indication including identification information for the incoming call; querying, by the call control unit, a server external to a telecommunication service provider providing the call and the telephone to determine whether additional information regarding a caller associated with the identification information is stored within a database communicatively coupled to the server, the database storing additional information associated with unwanted callers, the additional information including a user-configurable list of at least one of desired and undesired callers and being associated with a preferred operation to be performed on a call associated with the additional information, and if so, performing a first operation on the incoming call responsively to the additional information, the first operation corresponding to the preferred operation associated with the additional information, otherwise, performing a second operation on the incoming call responsively to an absence of the additional information; receiving an indication at the call control unit that the incoming call is undesired; and automatically adding the identification information for the undesired incoming call to the user-configurable list of undesired caller.