Network telephony appliance and system for inter/intranet telephony

A single unified end-user network appliance for providing packetized data over a packet data network, comprising:

• a network controller subsystem coupled to said packet data network for establishing point-to-point communications;
• a digital signal processing subsystem coupled to said network controller subsystem, the digital signal processing subsystem further comprising a computer program for detecting incoming calls and initiating call sessions;
• a signal conversion subsystem coupled to said digital signal processing subsystem;
• and
• a user interface subsystem coupled to both the signal conversion subsystem and said digital signal processing subsystem;
• wherein said digital signal processing subsystem comprises a digital signal processor (DSP) and one or more memory devices coupled to said digital signal processor;
• wherein said computer program implements the Session Initiation Protocol for detecting and initiating call sessions and performing call session control;
• wherein a unique SIP address is associated with the appliance, said address being stored in at least one of said memory devices;
• wherein the packetized data includes audio data and wherein the user interface subsystem comprises:
• a handset comprising an input device, a microphone and a speaker;
• and
• a display device;
• and
• wherein said computer program implements a monitor feature, wherein on detection of a call directed to the appliance from a caller, a call session is automatically initiated with said microphone enabled and said speaker disabled during the call session.