Importance

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Abstract

Choice of what portions of a dialed number are important and what weight they carry in deciding how to route or otherwise treat a call is customized and made contextually dependent via a call-processing arrangement (200) that uses stored definitions of syntax (320, 350) and grammar (400, 410) of the network numbering plan. The syntax definitions are reprogrammable definitions (312) of individual symbol strings and include the string's associated virtual nodepoint index (VNI 334) which indicates the string's influence on call treatment, an indicator (335) of whether digit collection is to continue, an indicator (339) of whether the VNI is to be combined with a VNI resulting from any preceding symbol strings in the dialed number, and an indicator (338) of whether the VNI resulting from this symbol string is to be combined with a VNI of any succeeding symbol strings in the dialed number. The dialed number is parsed (340) to identify therein all included symbol strings, and the definitions of the included symbol strings are used to selectively combine (341) their VNIs to form a resulting VNI that specifies the route or other treatment for the call.

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First Claim