Use of Telephone Self-Administration as a Security/Lockout Feature

The capability of obtaining personalized telephone subscriber feature at any telephone, such as is disclosed by U.S. Patent No. 4,899,373, is implemented ona single switching system, such as a private branch exchange (PBX), via the terminal self-administration mechanism described in U.S. Patent No. 4,959,856. Not only is the subscriber able to log in and obtain his or her personalized features at any telephone served by the switching system, but by associating a unique secret subscriber login password with each subscriber's telephone number and requiring each subscriber to logg off when he or she is done using the telephone, there is provided a security feature that allows only a valid password holder to log in, ensures that only the valid password holder can log in with the associated subscriber telephone number and disables the telephone from being used when no one is logged in thereat. This prevents or at least significantly lessens the opportunity for unauthorized use of the system's telephones.