the present invention can be better understood with reference to fig1 . fig1 depicts a communication system in accordance with the present invention . phone 10 is a landline phone comprising traditional landline hardware / software components 12 , processor 14 , low - range transceiver 15 , and antenna 17 . the user of phone 10 can use traditional landline components 12 , which includes a keypad and optional display , not shown , to place and receive calls to and from telephone network 50 , and to manually activate and de - activate call forwarding by calling service provider equipment 52 and using established procedures . telephone network 50 can be the public switched telephone network or some other public or private network . service provider equipment 52 includes a switch and possibly other equipment , not shown , necessary to facilitate call forwarding . processor 14 in phone 10 runs a program to facilitate automatic call forwarding ( acf ) in accordance with the present invention . although illustrated in fig1 as a separate component , processor 14 can in fact be a processor included in traditional components 12 . processor 14 passes messages to low - range transceiver 15 for transmission . for example , a “ beacon message ” can be transmitted to notify other phones in nearby proximity that phone 10 is equipped to provide automatic call forwarding . other messages can be used to pass information to nearby phones that are similarly capable , as discussed later . transceiver 15 also receives beacon messages and other messages from nearby , similarly capable phones and passes them to processor 14 for processing . transceiver 15 transmits and receives signals through antenna 17 . in an exemplary embodiment of the present invention , low - range transceivers 15 , 25 , and 35 utilize bluetooth technology . bluetooth is a wireless personal area network ( pan ) technology from the bluetooth special interest group . bluetooth is an open standard for short - range transmission of digital voice and data between mobile devices , such as laptops , pdas , and phones , and desktop devices . bluetooth supports point - to - point and multipoint applications . bluetooth provides up to 720 kbps data transfer within a range of 10 meters and up to 100 meters with a power boost . bluetooth uses omnidirectional radio waves that can transmit through walls and other non - metal barriers . bluetooth transmits in the unlicensed 2 . 4 ghz band and uses a frequency hopping spread spectrum technique that changes its signal 1600 times per second . phone 30 is a landline phone , similar to phone 10 , with components analogous to those of phone 10 . wireless phone 20 comprises traditional wireless hardware / software components 22 , processor 24 , low - range transceiver 25 , and antenna 27 . wireless phone 20 may be a cellular phone or some other wireless device . the user of phone 20 can use traditional wireless components 22 , which includes a keypad and optional display , not shown , to place and receive calls to and from wireless network 40 , and to manually activate and de - activate call forwarding through wireless service provider equipment 42 , using established procedures . wireless network 40 can be a cellular network or some other public or private wireless network . wireless service provider equipment 42 includes a radio base station , a switch , and possibly other equipment , not shown , needed to facilitate call forwarding . processor 24 runs a program to facilitate automatic call forwarding ( acf ) in accordance with the present invention . although illustrated in fig1 as a separate component , processor 24 can in fact be a processor included in traditional wireless components 22 . low - range transceiver 25 is used to communicate with low - range transceiver 15 of phone 10 and with low - range transceiver 35 of phone 30 , sending and receiving beacon messages and other messages that come from and go to processor 24 . transceiver 25 transmits and receives signals through antenna 27 which may be duplexed to operate with transceiver 25 and with the traditional wireless components 22 , as illustrated in fig1 or antenna 27 may be a separate antenna dedicated to low - range transceiver 25 . when phones 10 , 20 and 30 are first installed , they need to be programmed with call forwarding details . typically , each phone needs to be programmed with the phone number and / or feature code needed to activate call forwarding , and each phone needs to be programmed with the forwarded phone number . in addition , each phone needs to be programmed with the conditions that trigger activation and de - activation of automatic call forwarding . while the programming of call forwarding details can be relatively straightforward , different trigger conditions and many variations in the sequencing of data entry are possible . manufacturers may choose to sell multiple phones that are pre - programmed to implement automatic call forwarding when the phones come in near proximity of one another . alternately , programs running within a phone can be activated to implement call forwarding with a similarly equipped phone upon the receipt of the first beacon message from the similarly - equipped phone . once a set of phones is programmed to work with each other , call forwarding between the phones is automatic , based on the proximity relationships of the phones . for example , consider fig1 again . preferably , phones 10 and 30 are initially programmed to forward calls to wireless phone 20 whenever phone 20 is outside the range of the low - range transceivers in phones 10 and 30 . thus , if a user has his / her cell phone in the car on the way to the office , calls intended for any of the three phones will be sent to wireless phone 20 . later , when wireless phone 20 comes in near proximity to landline phone 10 ( at the office , for example ), phone 10 and phone 20 will pick up each other &# 39 ; s beacon message over 2 - way radio link 62 and respond according to its own programming . the programming in landline phone 10 preferably directs landline phone 10 to de - activate call forwarding to phone 20 , so that phone 10 can receive it &# 39 ; s own calls . the de - activation is preferably carried out by processor 14 , which directs conventional components 12 to access service provider equipment 52 over transmission link 19 . once connected , phone 10 sends the de - activation code to service provider equipment 52 , using the established protocol to de - activate call forwarding , producing the same result a user would achieve if he / she manually deactivated call forwarding using the keypad included in conventional components 12 . the programming in wireless phone 20 preferably directs wireless phone 20 to activate call forwarding to phone 10 . processor 24 within phone 20 controls this by using traditional wireless components 22 to access service provider equipment 42 over radio link 60 , and by carrying out the established procedure to activate call forwarding to phone 10 . thus , when phones 10 and 20 remain in proximity of one another , phone 10 receives its own calls as well all calls to phone 20 — including the calls forwarded to phone 20 from phone 30 . let &# 39 ; s continue the example by considering what happens when wireless phone 20 leaves the proximity of phone 10 . this could occur when the user leaves the office to go on an errand or to go home . when the low - range transceivers go out of each other &# 39 ; s range , phones 10 and 20 will sense the loss of each other &# 39 ; s beacon message . in that situation , phone 20 will de - activate call forwarding to phone 10 , and phone 10 will activate call forwarding to phone 20 . thus , all calls to all three phones will be sent to phone 20 again . continuing the example further , consider what happens if the user brings phone 20 within near proximity of phone 30 ( at home , for example ). preferably processor 34 in phone 30 will interpret the presence of the beacon message from phone 20 over 2 - way radio link 64 as a directive to de - activate call forwarding to phone 20 . phone 30 will de - activate in a manner analogous to how phone 10 deactivated call forwarding to phone 20 , as discussed earlier . similarly , phone 20 will interpret the presence of the beacon message from phone 30 as a directive to activate call forwarding of its calls to phone 30 , and will do so in a manner analogous to that discussed earlier . an enhancement to this invention is to allow users to suspend the preprogrammed call activation defaults , and later re - instate the pre - programmed defaults . consider the suspend case . in the preceding example , just before the user goes home , while low - range transceivers 15 and 25 are still receiving each other &# 39 ; s beacon message , the user could enter a code using the keypad of phone 20 to suspend call forwarding . this would preferably result in phone 20 de - activating call forwarding to phone 10 , even though phone 20 is in near - proximity of phone 10 . in addition , processor 24 would direct low - range transceiver 25 to send a message to low - range transceiver 15 to direct phone 10 to not activate call forwarding when phone 20 subsequently leaves the near proximity of phone 10 . the user could just as easily entered the suspend command using the keypad of phone 10 . in that case , phone 10 would take note to not activate call forwarding when phone 20 goes out of proximity . phone 10 will also send a message to phone 20 , directing phone 20 to de - activate call forwarding to phone 10 . thus , the present invention provides a method and apparatus for allowing phones to automatically forward calls intended for a first phone to a second phone based on the proximity of the phones to each other . in an exemplary embodiment , calls intended for a wireless phone while the wireless phone is in proximity to a landline phone are forwarded to the landline phone . this automatic call forwarding can be overridden by manually entering a key sequence into the wireless phone . in accordance with a further exemplary embodiment of the present invention , when the wireless phone and the landline phone are no longer in proximity , calls intended for the wireless phone are no longer automatically forwarded to the landline phone . this is typically accomplished by having the wireless phone send a key sequence to the network infrastructure canceling the call forwarding . in a further exemplary embodiment , upon leaving the proximity of the landline phone , calls now intended for the landline phone are automatically forwarded to the wireless phone . this is preferably done by sending a key sequence from the landline phone to the network infrastructure . this forwarding is done automatically , but can be overridden by entering a key sequence into the landline phone to cancel the automatic call forwarding . while this invention has been described in terms of certain examples thereof , it is not intended that it be limited to the above description , but rather only to the extent set forth in the claims that follow .