Location based personal telephone routing system

A location-based personal telephone routing system is responsive to a subscriber's location for routing incoming calls to a telephone near the subscriber. A program-controlled processor within the system interrogates a location determining device after receiving a call directed to the subscriber. The location determining device replies to the interrogation with a message including location information that the processor uses to dip into a database listing telephone numbers and corresponding locations of telephones specified by the subscriber. If no subscriber-listed telephones are near the location received, the system then dips into an area-wide database to compare the location received to the stored locations of a large number of telephones in a geographic area. Upon determining the telephone closest to the subscriber, the processor then routes the incoming call to the determined telephone and alerts the subscriber through distinctive ringing.