Lucent Technologies Inc.

Brian Hillis

Didina Burok

Steven Michael Silverstein

A call initiation request generated by an application running on a computer-telephony integration (CTI) server or other CTI device is supplied via a CTI link to a switch. The switch receives the request over the CTI link, and places a 'phantom' call from the originator of the call to the destination of the call. The phantom call may be representative of, for example, a real-time voice call or a non-real-time transaction such as a delivery of an e-mail, facsimile or voice mail message. The originator corresponds to a phantom extension or group of phantom extensions which is not associated with any physical communication device of the system. A phantom extension in accordance with the invention does not require an actual physical originator or destination communication device, as well as a corresponding switch port card or other hardware, and therefore does not consume valuable switch resources. The switch reports call status information for the phantom call to the application over the CTI link.

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Englewood, CO, United States of America

Brian Hillis