Telephonic communications – Special services – Reserved call
Reexamination Certificate
2000-04-04
2001-02-27
Weaver, Scott L. (Department: 2748)
Telephonic communications
Special services
Reserved call
C379S088200
Reexamination Certificate
active
06195424
ABSTRACT:
The invention relates to a telephone call response and processing system, especially directed to providing comprehensive call processing features for facilitating completion of incoming telephone calls and avoidance of loss of telephone calls.
BACKGROUND AND STATE OF ART
Modern living is characterized by people being highly mobile, and as a result, communication between persons, often away from their offices or residences, has spawned need for new modes of communication interchanging. Well known of such recent new modes of communication are for example mobile communications in the form of e.g. cellular mobile radio, person paging systems and voice mail. Each of these relatively recent technologies have made it considerably easier to locate and reach persons frequently away from their normal base of operation.
Even with aid of these new technologies, it is still often difficult or impossible to communicate with a person who is highly mobile.
The present invention is directed to overcoming the problem of reaching a person who is mobile and at the same time wants to be able to receive his or her messages, regardless of where he is at the time of a call. Along the same line this person may also wish to have a record of any caller who has attempted to reach him if he had not been able to answer the call.
In the known art, U.S. Pat. No. 5,193,110 describes an integrated services platform for telephone communication. This patent describes a system including a plurality of application processing parts for providing different types of information services through the telephone system.
U.S. Pats Nos. 4,914,690 and 4,930,15 describe a universal PBX-to-central office interface for standards conversion for supporting normally incompatible telephone equipment in a PBX environment, and an interface which attaches between an incoming trunk line from a central office and a PBX which monitors the communication between the central office and the PBX and records signals between the central office and the PBX for later downloading to telephone peripheral equipment attached to the PBX, such as voice mail and the like.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,975,941 describes an intercept system for integrating personalized services of switchboard attendants associated with on-premises PBX switching systems enabling the calling parties to complete their own calls when the telephone extension numbers of the called parties are known to the calling parties.
A considerable body of art is directed to enhancing and/or facilitating the process of reaching a person who is in proximity to a telephone line of a central office or a PABX. The known art, however, suffers from the drawback that human intervention is almost always required in completing such calls, and in addition, considerable investments are required in switching apparatus to perform these services.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention overcomes the drawbacks of the known art by combining features that have recently become tariffed and are available in central office switching technology.
The invention is based on a combination of so-called two-way direct-inward-dialing trunks and the three-way calling feature.
In its preferred embodiment the method of the invention can be applied to central office PBX systems, key systems and to single line telephones, and also to cellular phones (“cell phones”) and pagers to provide an automatic comprehensive person following service.
Applicant has developed an enhanced telephone services platform using the concept of Computer Telephone Integration (CTI) which provides basic voice mail, fax mail, fax-on-demand, and enhanced services such as One-Number-Follow Me transfers. The platform as contemplated is to be marketed and deployed as Consumer Premises Equipment (CPE) as well as in industrial version in a Service Bureau setting.
Over the years the telephone industry has had only limited ability to provide enhanced services from the central office on a wide scale basis, which has given the CTI industry an opportunity to develop CPE, which can be widely available to any person or business to be installed behind its switching facility to give that business those enhanced services. For about a dozen years central office switches have used Signaling System
7
(SS
7
) software control which have allowed addition of Intelligent Network (IN) or in the U.S. Advanced Intelligent Network equipment (AIN) and Intelligent Peripherals to provide enhanced services. Deployment of AIN has, however, been disappointing.
The Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) has been based essentially on Bellcore—the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC's) of Bell Labs to develop standards for any equipment which is attached to the PSTN. In the case of AIN, Bellcore has developed standards, and equipment vendors have designed and manufactured specified equipment to the RBOC'S. In the CTI industry the process is quite the opposite. Entrepreneurs have developed CTI platforms capable of providing enhanced services.
Direct Inward Dial or DID is a standard service provided by a central office to the customer's premises. The signaling can be analog, also known as E & M, or digital, known as D-carrier in e.g., T-1 format. The T-1 format includes signaling such as on/off hook, and/or ringing which tells a CTI platform which phone numbers are dialed. For example, in a CTI Service Bureau setting, a T-1 format will supply 24 multiplexed telephone lines reachable by thousands of phone numbers for the service bureau customers. Typically DID trunks can initiate calls in one direction only, outbound from the central office. If one were to hook a telephone to such a one-way DID line one would get no dial tone. Issue #042 of the Bell standard describes a 2-way DID trunk that has dial tone and allows outward dialing, and has as well the ability to receive flash hook to get a second dial tone during an inbound call. This gives in a CTI service bureau application an ability to offer enhanced AIN services, such as One-Number-Follow Me, from a remote site not connected to the central office switch. This feature allows a CTI platform to switch calls exactly like a central office.
The invention is based on using the 2-way DID-trunk combined with the 3-way calling feature which are available as standard tariffed features. The invention is further based on using a digital carrier format, such as e.g. the standard T-1 carrier format, which provides 24 voice and signaling channels on a 1.544 megabit/sec carrier channel. The T-1 carrier format is readily implemented by means of a so-called per se conventional digital board or module, which provides a seamless digital interface with a standard e.g. T-1 carrier format, and additionally provides voice and tone interpretation for all, e.g. 24 channels of the T-1 carrier on a time division basis. The digital board also provides time-divided interfacing with a bank of recorded and recording voice channels. These voice channels are structured to provide and record voice messages in the standard e.g. D-1 carrier format, as will be described in more detail below.
A description of various digital carrier formats can be found in, for example,
Electronic Engineers Handbook
by Donald G. Fink, et al. issued by McGraw Hill Book Company, and other sources.
The invention contemplates for example, reselling Local Exchange Service along with enhanced services, long distance resale, cellular and PCS resale, pagers and Internet access, bundled together and billed on one invoice.
In accordance with the invention, there is provided an automatic person-following system for a telephone switching machine having at least one 2-way DID trunk operative for receiving incoming and transmitting outgoing calls, a 3-way calling feature connectable to the trunk, a bank of data storage cells accessible from the DID trunk, each cell having storage capacity for storing at least one pre-recorded voice message, at least one incoming. voice message, and at least one pre-recorded telephone number; signaling apparatus for signaling a hookswitch flash
Eagletech Communications, Inc.
Senterfitt Akerman
Weaver Scott L.
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