Method and apparatus for enabling global telephony capabilities in communication networks

A tangible computer-readable medium storing a plurality of instructions which, when executed by a processor of a call control element, cause the processor to perform operations for providing an in-country telephone call service in a communication network, the operations comprising:

• providing the in-country telephone call service in accordance with a configuration file associated with a selected country on behalf of an endpoint of a customer, wherein the configuration file stored in an application server is retrieved by the call control element from the application server, wherein the configuration file is associated with the selected country registered by the customer, wherein the selected country is different than a country where the customer is located;
• assigning an in-country phone number to the customer of the selected country, wherein the endpoint associated with the in-country phone number is physically located in a country that is different than the selected country and where a calling party in the selected country is not charged for an international call to the in-country phone number, wherein both the customer and the calling party are subscribed to the in-country telephone call service;
• receiving a call setup message associated with the endpoint that has subscribed to the in-country telephone call service;
• retrieving an in-country option of the selected country from the configuration file stored in the application server;
• and
• processing the call setup message via the communication network in accordance with the in-country option retrieved from the configuration file stored in the communication network, wherein the processing comprises the call control element accepting the in-country phone number of the endpoint of the customer and a calling party number of the calling party and translates the in-country phone number into a corresponding terminating internet protocol address of the endpoint of the customer.

An apparatus for providing an in-country telephone call service in a communication network, comprising:

• a processor of a call control element;
• and
• a computer-readable medium storing a plurality of instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations, the operations comprising:
• providing the in-country telephone call service in accordance with a configuration file associated with a selected country on behalf of an endpoint of a customer, wherein the configuration file stored in an application server is retrieved by the call control element from the application server, wherein the configuration file is associated with the selected country registered by the customer, wherein the selected country is different than a country where the customer is located;
• assigning an in-country phone number to the customer of the selected country, wherein the endpoint associated with the in-country phone number is physically located in a country that is different than the selected country and where a calling party in the selected country is not charged for an international call to the in-country phone number, wherein both the customer and the calling party are subscribed to the in-country telephone call service;
• receiving a call setup message associated with the endpoint that has subscribed to the in-country telephone call service;
• retrieving an in-country option of the selected country from the configuration file stored in the application server;
• and
• processing the call setup message via the communication network in accordance with the in-country option retrieved from the configuration file stored in the communication network, wherein the processing comprises the call control element accepting the in-country phone number of the endpoint of the customer and a calling party number of the calling party and translates the in-country phone number into a corresponding terminating internet protocol address of the endpoint of the customer.