a method for dialing a telephone number indirectly , including obtaining an alphanumeric identifier that is assigned to a telephone subscriber and associating the identifier with a destination telephone number of the telephone subscriber to form a mapping therebetween . the method further includes storing the mapping in a lookup table , dialing the identifier using an originating telephone , using the identifier as a pointer to the lookup table so as to recover the destination telephone number from the stored mapping , and establishing a connection between the originating telephone and a destination telephone via the destination telephone number .