A communications network includes packet-based networks that are coupled to various network elements. A method and apparatus is provided to implement telephony services in the communications network. The architecture for providing the telephony services may include several layers, including a network elements layer, an interface layer, and a services/application layer. The services/application layer is decoupled from the specific implementations of the network element layer so that a more flexible and convenient mechanism is provided to create telephony services. The telephony services may be implemented in software modules written in one of several possible languages, such as a telephony scripting language (TSL) or other language. The interface layer includes various components, including translation components to interpret and execute the modules that are in the services/application layer, communications components to provide mechanisms to send commands to network elements layer to perform the specified telephony services, and representation components that describe the functions, tasks, and other details associated with network elements.