Patent ID: 7177406

Claim:
A method for providing voicemail services, comprising: receiving, by a voicemail system, a call forwarded from a first local exchange carrier associated with a called party via a long distance network, the call being from a calling party and intended for the called party and wherein the voicemail system is not affiliated with the first local exchange carrier; providing a prompt to the calling party; storing a voicemail message from the calling party; identifying a subscriber loop associated with the called party; identifying a central office associated with the subscriber loop; and transmitting a message to the central office associated with the subscriber loop, the message indicating that a message waiting indicator is to be provided to the called party, wherein the voicemail system comprises a plurality of network devices configured to receive voicemail messages, the method further comprising: providing the first local exchange carrier with a plurality of toll free telephone numbers to which calls to subscribers of the voicemail system are to be forwarded after a predetermined number of rings, the providing comprising: assigning the toll free numbers to subscriber loops in a round robin fashion such that calls to the subscribers of the voicemail system are distributed over the plurality of network devices.