US Patent 7660898 Presence enhanced telephony service architecture

A telecommunications network is enhanced with a presence component. A session initiator requests a session with a session terminator by contacting a presence server. The presence server receives the request for presence information and processes the request by comparing the session initiator's identity to preferences of the session terminator to identify a preferred treatment. The presence server returns the preferred treatment to the session initiator. The session is then initiated or not initiated based upon the preferred treatment.