Abstract: In a communication system that provides access to telephone resources of different types, a resource allocator of the communication system may more efficiently allocate the telephone resources in the following manner. Once a communication unit of a first communication group transmits a request for allocation of a telephone resource, the resource allocator determines what communication group the requesting communication unit is affiliated with. Subsequently, the resource allocator determines whether the requesting communication unit has primary access to either a first or second set of telephone resources. When a telephone resource is available and the requesting communication unit has primary access to that telephone resource, the resource allocator allocates the telephone resource to the requesting communication unit based upon a preestablished allocation procedure.

Abstract: A radio communication controller (106, 401) is disclosed which is capable of accessing a database having a subscriber unit identification code (302, 601) and a preselected calling code, or area code, accumulating a keyed Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) telephone number from the subscriber unit wishing to make an interconnect call (110, 407), and comparing (215, 518) this area code with that of the controller site. The controller, as employed by the invention, is further capable of deciding whether or not the area code is required for completing the interconnect call, and if so, prefacing (217, 520) the accumulated PSTN telephone number with the area code preselected by the user of that subscriber unit.