Abstract: The invention relates to a method for modelling the operational risk of an entity, the method comprising the steps of: Compiling a list with one or more failure events; Compiling a list with one or more causes of the failure events; Compiling a list with one or more impact types of the failure events; Evaluating interdependencies between the failure events, the causes of the failure events and the impact types of the failure events; Decomposing the interdependencies, thereby establishing one or more independent impact sub-models.

Abstract: A method of operating an availability service in a telecommunication system interconnecting a legacy telephone system with at least one presence system, said legacy telephone system including a plurality of terminals (T1 . . . T10), at least some (T1,T2) of which are terminals of subscribers to said availability service, said method including: (a) continuously monitoring each subscriber terminal (T1,T2) for a change of a call status of said subscriber terminal from the presence of a call to the absence of a call; (b) generating a first or “high availability” signal when said call status of said subscriber terminal changes from said presence of a call into said absence of a call; (c) monitoring an interval of time beginning with said first signal; (d) generating a second or “availability unknown” signal after a predetermined time period &tgr; within said interval; and (e) making said availability signals accessible to any interconnected presence system.

Abstract: A teleconferencing system comprised of one or more telecommunication systems; two or more subscriber terminals connected to the telecommunication systems; an electronic computing means connected any telecommunication system of the teleconferencing system. The electronic computing means, e.g. a server-type computer runs a conference initiating program; and a means for providing an availability signal associated with each subscriber terminal. The availability signal is accessible to the server and any participating telecommunication system is capable of cooperating with program for initiating a conference between the subscriber terminals; program initiates a conference between the subscriber terminals by attempting transmission of a conference call when such call is requested by any of the subscriber terminals; the conference call is transmitted to each subscriber terminal as soon as its associated availability signal indicates availability of that terminal.

Abstract: A method of operating an availability service in a telecommunication system interconnecting a legacy telephone system with at least one presence system, said legacy telephone system including a plurality of terminals (T1 . . .