A system is described for providing a single telephone number for geographically
dispersed telephony service subscribers. The system includes an automatic call
distributor (ACD) coupled to receive incoming calls from a public switched telephone
network (PSTN) and a plurality of gateways coupled between the ACD and the Internet.
Each one of the gateways is assigned to service a defined group of subscribers.
The ACD selectively interconnects an incoming telephone call from the PSTN to an
appropriate one of the gateways based on at least a portion of a setup message
field identifying a telephone number forwarding the incoming telephone call.
