Components of a telephone system often do not evolve in lock-step with other system improvements. For a variety of reasons, a component in a system may be operational to enable telephone calls utilizing a particular dialing format but be inoperable for calls utilizing a different format. Telephone number formats were initially numeric. The number of digits and format of the digits was often determined based on a country-specific dialing plan. Many countries have moved to more digits or alphanumeric formats (e.g., URIs). By capturing these enhanced addresses and generating an associated unique identifier, internal networks may utilize legacy numbering systems internally and, once the call reaches an edge device, route them based upon the enhanced address.

A process and apparatus to facilitate communication between callers and callees in a system comprising a plurality of nodes with which callers and callees are associated is disclosed. In response to initiation of a call by a calling subscriber, a caller identifier and a callee identifier are received. Call classification criteria associated with the caller identifier are used to classify the call as a public network call or a private network call. A routing message identifying an address, on the private network, associated with the callee is produced when the call is classified as a private network call and a routing message identifying a gateway to the public network is produced when the call is classified as a public network call.

A method, apparatus and system for routing a communication in a communication system between a first participant device, on an Internet Protocol (IP) network, associated with a first participant, and a second participant device associated with a second participant. The method comprises receiving a second participant identifier associated with the second participant device, causing the at least one processor to access a user profile that is specific to the first participant and associated with a plurality of first participant attributes, comparing the second participant and at least one first participant attribute and identifying whether at least one route exists, producing route information to an Internet Protocol (IP) address on a first communication network or associated with a gateway to the second communication network, and establishing the communication to the second participant. At least one of the networks may utilize Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) compatible numbers for identifying a route for the communication.

Systems and methods are disclosed to provide routing data associated with a destination phone number to a service provider. The service provider sends a first query to a first computing node of a data provider for routing data associated with a phone number. The first computing node provides the routing data if it is available from the data provider. Otherwise, the first computing node identifies a second data provider that is capable of providing the routing data. The first computing node then obtains the routing data from the second data provider and returns it to the service provider.

A service protection method includes a first node that determines that a fault has occurred on a first working path, and generates a service switching message based on the fault on the first working path. The first node sends the service switching message on a first protection path, where the service switching message indicates to adjust a bandwidth of a service from a guard bandwidth to a target bandwidth, where the guard bandwidth represents a pre-occupied bandwidth of the first protection path before the service is transmitted, where the target bandwidth represents an occupied bandwidth for transmitting the service on the first protection path, and where the guard bandwidth is less than the target bandwidth.