Patent ID: 8340262

Claim:
A method for routing telephone calls, said method comprising: identifying a called party of a household having multiple parties associated with an incoming call to a telephone line terminating at the household; accessing call routing parameters for routing telephone calls to the telephone line, the call routing parameters including a plurality of call priorities, each of the multiple parties in the household being assigned one of the plurality of call priorities wherein a call for a called party assigned to a higher priority is connected in favor of a call for a called party assigned to a lower priority; responsive to the identification of the called party, determining a call priority of the incoming call from the one of the plurality of call priorities assigned to the called party; and based in part upon the call priority of the incoming call, routing the incoming call according to a set of pre-defined call routing rules, wherein the routing the incoming call comprises detecting an in-progress call on the telephone line, identifying a party of the household associated with the in-progress call by recognizing a recorded voice during the in-progress call and based on the call priority, determining whether to disconnect the in-progress call.