Abstract: With a personal call manager, when a caller calls a primary telephone number for the owner of the personal call manager, the personal call manager selectively routes the incoming call to any combination of local extensions on the owner's premises, and to remote extensions such as a telephone instrument on another premises, a pager, a cellular telephone, a central office voice mail box, and a cellular telephone voice mail box. A call handler stored in a memory of the personal call manager is used to specify how an incoming call is handled. The personal call manager retains control over an incoming call throughout the duration of the call. Consequently, the owner can route the incoming call to multiple locations, or transfer the call to a telephone answering service at any time after taking the incoming call as defined by the active call handler. Moreover, a call can be handled based on the type of call, e.g., voice, fax, or modem.