Patent ID: 8442203

Claim:
A method of preventing a high priority third party from prematurely terminating a call when network resources are at or near capacity, the method comprising: initiating a call between a first party and a second party in a telecommunications system; connecting the call between a device of a first party and a device of a second party, wherein the second party is a person authorized to manually mark the call non-preemptable for at least one of public safety purposes or emergency call purposes; receiving a request that the call be designated as a non-preemptable call; marking the call, while the call is in progress, with a non-preemptable call status, wherein marking the call with the non-preemptable call status comprises sending a signal to a main switching element in the telecommunications system requesting non-preemptable call status for the call; propagating the non-preemptable call status to nodes and switching points in the telecommunications system, wherein: non-preemptable call status acts to prevent the call from early termination by the high priority third party attempting to gain access to the network resources by establishing another call on the network; and non-preemptable call status acts to prevent the reallocation, to the high priority third party, of network resources being utilized by the call; continuing call activity until the call is terminated by either the first party or the second party; and clearing the non-preemptable call status from the nodes and switching points in the telecommunications system.