An integrated voice gateway system for use within a company which can
route a voice telephone call between parties at two different locations
over an IP network or over the PST NETWORK. The system can route a voice
telephone call from a first location within the system to a second
location within the system via the IP network, and then from the second
location to a third location via the PST NETWORK. The integrated voice
gateway system includes a gateway server which serves as an
intranet/Internet telephony gateway. The gateway server routes
intra-company voice or facsimile (fax) calls, over the company's intranet
or the public Internet. The gateway server provides an alternate voice
network to the PST NETWORK for a company. This alternate network is
provided at a much lower cost. The gateway server is a combination of
hardware and software components which reside on a PC server platform.
The gateway server is coupled to a customer premise telephone system,
i.e. a PBX via a T1 or E1 trunk for larger systems, or an analog trunk
for smaller systems. The gateway server is coupled to the company's
intranet via industry standard connections. The gateway servers in a
multi-site company are coupled together via the company's intranet or
wide area network (WAN) into a gateway network. The gateway server uses
PBX call status links to provide many unique and useful features which
are otherwise unavailable. The gateway server uses T1 inband ANI, PRI,
QSIG or industry standard CTI applications programming interfaces (API)
and works with any PBX which supports any of these call status links. The
gateway server is equipped with a database of user and gateway objects
and attributes, and provides many unique features including caller's name
based on caller phone number, address translation, gateway network
routing information, user authentication, etc. This database can be
integrated with industry standard enterprise directory services systems
including any directory which supports the Lightweight Directory Access
Protocol (X.500) (LDAP) interface.