an ip telephony service provider would like to allow a customer to subscribe to telephony service with equipment either installed by a third party or purchased and installed by the customer . in these cases , the identity of the end - point equipment may not be known by the service provider prior to installation . additionally , the customer &# 39 ; s account may not be established at that time either . however , early in the service subscription process , the service provider cannot reliably know the identity ( i . e ., mac address ) of the specific piece of equipment that will eventually be installed at a given customer &# 39 ; s location . in order to support service - specific features to an authorized and appropriate end - point , both the customer and the end - point equipment must be uniquely identified and known to the service provider . the identity of the end - point equipment ( such as the mac address of the end - point ) is made known to network systems during an auto - registration process that occurs when the equipment is powered on , and the capabilities of the end - point are enabled by the content of a configuration file that is downloaded during that process . however , fully capable service features cannot be supported unless there is an account and the equipment is associated with that account . without the existence of an account , and without the linking of an account with the equipment identity , network systems cannot know which configuration file to download to which end - point during the auto - registration procedure . ip telephony service may be available either by using equipment installed by third party providers or by using home computer ( software ) versions of an ip telephony endpoint . the latter is typically installed and turned on by the customer . in both cases , neither the identity of the end - point equipment nor the customer &# 39 ; s identity and service subscription ( if any ) may be known prior to the installation and turn on . this is the “ retail model ” of ip telephony service . in such a case , the first stage of the presently disclosed method uses a registration process to make available to the end - point ( regardless of whether or not there is an associated customer account ) basic communication capabilities . these basic capabilities can then be used by the customer ( or third - party installer ) to create an account , establish service features , and associate the specific end - point equipment with the account . after the first stage of the process is performed , a second stage of the process is performed . the second stage of the auto - registration process then allows the downloading of a customer - and service - specific configuration file that can support the new customer &# 39 ; s service features . the presently disclosed method utilizes a two - stage auto - registration process . referring to fig1 a flow chart of the method 10 is shown . the first step 20 of the process installs an end - point on a network . this may be a piece of equipment purchased or leased from a third party which is also installed by the third party , or may alternately be a computer program installed on a home computer by the customer . after the installation of the ip - telephony end - point , powering on that end - point equipment triggers a first stage of the auto - registration process . this first stage informs network systems of the equipment identity , and enables basic communication capabilities . as shown in the next step , step 30 , during the first stage , a default configuration file is made available to the end - point . in one embodiment , the configuration file enables a restricted set of capabilities which are sufficient to allow the customer to call a special destination . this is shown in step 40 . this destination would either be a staffed service center , or an automated voice - recognition server . the customer could then establish an account , and subscribe to specific service features . during this service - establishment process , the service representative establishing the account , or the network server using voice - recognition capabilities , can query the end - point ( e . g ., using an snmp “ get ” message ) for its identity ( mac address ). the identity of the equipment is then linked to the service features and the customer account , and that association would be established in the network systems involved in the auto - registration process . alternately , the default configuration provides to the end - point a set of capabilities which is just sufficient to allow the installer to use the data communications capabilities of the end - point to enter a key that identifies the specific customer &# 39 ; s service features . this key is then used by the systems that support auto - registration to retrieve or construct a configuration file that supports that customer &# 39 ; s specific service features , and to link it to the mac address of the end - point equipment ( which is identified automatically during the auto - registration process ). after completion of the above - described first stage , a second stage of the process is initiated , such as by rebooting the customer &# 39 ; s equipment . as shown in step 50 , the proper configuration file is selected ( or constructed ) based on the now - known mac address of the end - point which was identified during the first stage of the auto - registration process and the now - known customer identity . the configuration file will enable the full range of service to which the customer has subscribed . the process is then finished , as shown in step 60 . one advantage of the proposed two - stage auto - registration procedure is that the installer uses capabilities that are being installed in the customer premises equipment during the initial steps of the process and need not have an alternative means of communication with a network representative . another advantage of the presently described two stage auto - registration process is that the installer need only enter a simple key that identifies the customer ( this could be a customer id number , an account number , the customer &# 39 ; s address , etc .). the installer is not required to recite or enter a complex identifier for the end - point equipment since the mac address of the end - point is revealed to the network systems during the first stage of the auto - registration process . having described preferred embodiments of the invention , it will now become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that other embodiments incorporating these concepts may be used . additionally , the software included as part of the invention may be embodied in a computer program product that includes a computer - usable medium . for example , such a computer - usable medium can include a readable memory device , such as a hard drive device , a cd - rom , a dvd - rom , or a computer diskette , having computer - readable program code segments stored thereon . the computer - readable medium can also include a communications link , either optical , wired , or wireless , having program code segments carried thereon as digital or analog signals . accordingly , it is submitted that the invention should not be limited to the described embodiments but rather should be limited only by the spirit and scope of the appended claims .