Abstract: An architecturally and cost efficient method and system are disclosed for accessing a voice messaging platform. An exemplary method for accessing the platform includes: (1) forwarding a telephone call to the platform over foreign exchange lines when the telephone call involves a caller who, upon call initiation to a called party subscriber, encountered a busy or ring-no-answer condition, so that the caller may leave a message for the called party in the called party's mailbox; and (2) routing a telephone call to the platform over a trunk group local to the platform when the telephone call involves a caller-subscriber initiating a telephone call directly to the platform to access his/her mailbox to retrieve messages, administer greetings, and/or send voice messages to other subscribers. For calls forwarded over foreign exchange lines, the platform is provided with a wide variety of call information transmitted via an SMDI link.

Abstract: An automated call routing system and method which operates on a call-routing objective of a calling party expressed in natural speech of the calling party. The system incorporates a speech recognition function, as to which a calling party's natural-speech call routing objective provides an input, and which is trained to recognize a plurality of meaningful phrases, each such phrase being related to a specific call routing objective. Upon recognition of one or more of such meaningful phrases in a calling party's input speech, an interpretation function then acts on such calling party's routing objective request to either implement the calling party's requested routing objective or to enter into a dialog with the calling party to obtain additional information from which a sufficient confidence level can be attained to implement that routing objective.