Communication systems and methods are disclosed that provide a voice mail
bridging service. A communication network attempts to connect a call
between a calling party and a called party. The called party has a
plurality of telephone numbers corresponding with a plurality of voice
mail systems. Responsive to the communication network determining that
the called party has not answered the call attempt, the communication
network prompts the calling party to record a voice message. The
communication network receives a voice message from the calling party.
The communication network identifies a plurality of telephone numbers for
the called party, such as a home number, a mobile number, a business
number, etc. The communication network then transmits the voice message
to the voice mail systems corresponding with the identified telephone
numbers for the called party. The called party can thus access any of the
voice mail systems to retrieve the voice message.