Patent ID: 7965707

Claim:
A method of establishing connections in a Voice over Internet Protocol communication network, comprising: storing a plurality of user-configurable aliases in association with contact information of a user terminal by adding to storage an alias entered by a user of the user terminal and deleting from storage an alias specified by the user of the user terminal; at a proxy, receiving a call request from a first device that establishes a connection to the user terminal, the call request including one of the aliases; determining the contact information associated with the alias included in the call request; determining a unique outgoing alias associated with the first device, wherein the user of the user terminal defines the unique outgoing alias, distributes the unique outgoing alias, and determines a local policy associated with each alias of the plurality of user-configurable aliases; establishing the connection to the user terminal using the contact information; displaying the unique outgoing alias on the user terminal; and blocking a subsequent call request when the user terminal attempts to initiate a call to the first device using the unique outgoing alias.