Patent ID: 8498302

Claim:
A system for exposing telecommunications network functionality, said system comprising: a telecommunications network, operating on one or more microprocessors, that provides third party call functionality via a signaling protocol, wherein the third party call functionality enables a third party to control a call between two or more other parties; an application that invokes said third party call functionality in response to a request from said third party; a gateway positioned between said application and said telecommunications network, wherein said gateway includes a plug-in that exposes the third party call functionality as a web service, and a plug-in application programming language (API) that is associated with a configuration and that enables communication between the plug-in and a signaling software component via a signaling protocol API; wherein the plug-in translates the web service request received from the third party, via the application, into one or more signaling protocol invocations to the telecommunications network, which are then communicated via the signaling software component to the telecommunications network, to control the call between the two or more other parties.