Patent ID: 6856616

Claim:
A system for configuring a telephone for service comprising: a data network to provide data connectivity for a plurality of data communications channels using data transport protocols; at least one data network telephone connected to the data network, the data network telephone operable to communicate voice signals as data packets on a voice over data channel, the voice over data channel being one of the plurality of data communications channels on the data network containing packetized voice signals, the data network telephone being operable to convert data packets communicated on the voice over data channel to voice; a telephone configuration server connected to the data network, the telephone configuration server comprising at east one service provider configuration comprising at least one voice communications function; and a telephone part number comprising any combination of alphanumeric characters, the telephone configuration server being operable to associate the telephone part number with a selected one of the at least one service provider configurations, wherein the selected one of the at least one service provider configuration includes a service provider proxy address associated with a telephone service provider, and wherein the telephone configuration server provides the service provider proxy address to the at least one data network telephone in response to receiving the telephone part number the data network telephone.