DISTRIBUTED COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK INCLUDING ONE OR MORE TELEPHONY COMMUNICATION DEVICES HAVING PROGRAMMABLE FUNCTIONALITY

A computer program product having an open telephony system architecture such that one or more telephony applications defined on the computer program product may be modified, after initial deployment in the field (e.g. on a customer premise), independently of a vendor that controlled development of the one or more telephony applications. Further, a computer program product having an extensible telephony system architecture such that the telephony functionality defined thereon can be expanded by adding telephony applications to the computer program product. Also, a computer program product capable of controlling a connection during a telephone call using any of a plurality of call control protocols, including SIP, H.323, MGCP, Megaco/H.248, and the Skinny Station protocol. For a telephone call involving multiple connections, for example, a conference call, the computer program product can control communications on each connection concurrently and can use a different call control protocol for each connection. A communications network including one or more computer program products having one or more of the following properties: an open telephony system architecture, an extensible telephony system architecture; the capability to control a telephony call using any of a plurality of call control protocols.