An agent-based telephony system is provided for establishing a call
between two or more telephony devices interconnected through an automated
call dispatch server. The automated call dispatch server includes a call
control agent for processing call requests; a call resource management
agent in communication with the call control agent for allocating and
controlling the resources needed to establish a call between telephony
devices; and a resource control agent in communication with the call
resource management agent for providing a hardware-dependent interface to
the telephony devices.