BACKGROUND

It has become increasingly common for residential and business consumers to receive multiple types of communication services. For example, users in a home may all communicate with the outside world through telephone calls, emails, instant messages, etc. In many cases, a user may employ multiple devices to take advantages of these services. As the range of available services increases, and as users seek to receive more of those services on different types of devices, management of individual user identities, preferences, contact information, and other types of data becomes increasingly complex. This complexity can be compounded when multiple users share communication devices.

SUMMARY

This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the invention.

In some embodiments, a profile-based system is employed to manage user identities and preferences, devices, content and/or other aspects of service delivery. The user profiles may be maintained in one or more servers or other elements located in an external network and accessed via a customer premises equipment (CPE) gateway of a local network. The profiles can be used to map users to identities, devices, services, and other features that affect the manner in which a particular user communicates with (or through) the external network.

Numerous other features can be provided in one or more additional embodiments. For example, elements in an external network may be used provide a notification summary to inform a specific user about pending events in any of one or more services. The summary may, in at least some embodiments, consolidate information about pending events and synchronize notification across multiple devices. As but another example, profiles may be employed to facilitate a user selection of a particular telephone number for a voice call session. Depending on profile settings, a user may also be permitted to join a pre-existing voice call session.

Profiles may also be used to control the manner in which notifications of incoming voice call sessions or of other types of events are provided. In some embodiments, for example, each user may have one or more unique audio and/or visual indicators specified in his or her profile. Those indicators can then be used with notifications to that user of incoming communications and other events directed to that user. Profiles can also be used to control the manner in which notifications of multiple simultaneous events are directed to different users.

Additional embodiments include systems and techniques for providing “public address” type messages to multiple users. Yet other embodiments include a network-based address book that permits users to share selected contact data with other users. Still further embodiments combine some or all of the above-described features and/or additional features described herein.

