a method of automatically allocating a mailbox to a called party in a digital telephone network , including the steps : receiving a call to be routed to a called party ; extracting one or more relevant predefined parameters from the call ; using one or more of the extracted parameters to determine the existence of a mailbox associated with the called party ; if an associated mailbox exists , translating the call to that mailbox address ; if there is not a mailbox associated with the called party , allocating a mailbox from a pre - existing pool of mailboxes available for allocation to the called party ; diverting the call to the allocated mailbox .