Patent ID: 7894590

Claim:
A method for sharing a telephone number of a telephone device that is in the Public Switched Telephone Network with an Internet Protocol device that is outside the Public Switched Telephone Network, the method comprising: receiving, at a gateway, a call set-up message for a voice telephone call that was originally addressed to the telephone device that is in the Public Switched Telephone Network, wherein the call has been forwarded from the telephone number of the telephone device that was originally called, and wherein telephone number is an address in the address space of the Public Switched Telephone Network; and attempting, without human intervention and without intervention by an interactive-voice-response system, to establish the voice telephone call with the Internet Protocol device, wherein the Internet Protocol device (i) has an address in the address space of the Internet, and (ii) lacks a unique telephone number in the address space of the Public Switched Telephone Network; wherein the address of the Internet Protocol device is found from an association between (i) the telephone number of the originally-called telephone device and (ii) an Internet-telephony-address, wherein the association resides in a Subscriber Identification database.