Abstract: A telephony method and apparatus for communicating over a network. The apparatus has a device for receiving a signal representing a telephone number from a digital network. In addition, the apparatus includes a database containing a plurality of telephone numbers and a corresponding plurality of network addresses. The database is coupled to the receiving device. The apparatus also includes a device for transmitting, over the digital network, a signal representing an internet address corresponding to the telephone number. The transmitting device is coupled between the database and the digital network. The telephony method includes configuring a local encoder for internet telephony and querying and address mapping server for a destination address. The telephony method also includes searching a database associated with the address mapping server for the destination address and returning the destination address from the address mapping server to the local encoder.