Telephonic communications – Plural exchange network or interconnection – Interexchange signalling
Reexamination Certificate
2001-09-18
2003-02-04
Hong, Harry S. (Department: 2642)
Telephonic communications
Plural exchange network or interconnection
Interexchange signalling
C370S384000, C370S426000, C370S522000, C379S201010
Reexamination Certificate
active
06516061
ABSTRACT:
STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH
Not Applicable
REFERENCE TO MICROFICHE APPENDIX
Not Applicable
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to PBX systems, and more particularly, to remotely accessing PBX systems so as to utilize features inherent to the PBX systems via a remote handset, external to the PBX system, such as a standard, third party telephone device.
The majority of in-house telephone systems (e.g., PBX) in use today employ physical telephone units (referred to herein in general as “sets” or “desksets”) that are wired into a switching device. The switching device, in conjunction with various processing components, provides a wide range of facilities and features to the deskset user. Such facilities and features include voicemail, call transfer, and conferencing, among others. The deskset is a user interface device that is typically comprised of a microphone/speaker, standardized telephone keypad, feature keys, text display, and other visual displays (e.g., lamps or LEDs), and is used primarily to receive and place telephone calls. The deskset employs a fixed and proprietary protocol for communicating with the switching device. Such protocols are typically restricted by the characteristics of the wire (i.e., the transmission path) that connects the deskset to the switching device.
A disadvantage to such in-house systems is the inability to provide an effective interface for users who do not have access to the deskset-wire-switch configuration (for example, mobile users). Such users may have access to standard third party telephone devices (e.g., cell phones, pay phones, etc.) connected to public telephone networks with public telephone numbers. These users have the ability to place and receive telephone calls via the standard third party devices, but since the third party devices operate independent from the inhouse system, they do not have access to the aforementioned facilities and features provided by their in house telephone system. A number of solutions are currently used to partially solve this problem. For example:
1) Call Forwarding—automatically forwarding all received calls from the in-house system to another telephone device (e.g., cell phone). This solution is a receive-only solution that “blind” transfers the call with no option to return to the user's telephone system in the event of a busy line, ring no answer, or other failure to complete the forwarded call.
2) Attendant Transfer—using a human attendant at the site of the in-house system to answer an incoming call, and transfer it to the telephone device. This solution requires the use of a human attendant and does not support a direct calling to called party paradigm
3) Bridged line appearances with auto-dialing of the telephone device number—similar to Call Forwarding, this solution has the advantage of maintaining the host switch connection until the user answers the call. The limitation of this solution is that it is receive-only and once the call is completed the user cannot utilize any of the normal features associated with their line (e.g., conference or transfer)
4) DISA—allows a user to remotely access a telephone system for placing calls only with no restrictions on calling.
5) Voice Mail out-dialing—similar to DISA but is accessed via the voice mail system. This typically restricts a user to extension dialing only and supports no call control features.
6) Follow-Me features—automated attendants that answer calls on behalf of the user and then intelligently forward or hunt for the user. This call-receiving model is non-concurrent in that the calling party has to interact with an intermediary before reaching the desired party.
7) Off-Premise Extensions—allows a standard deskset to be set up at a remote site for placing/receiving calls. This facility operates on leased lines only and provides no ability to alter the remote telephone device.
As cellular phone networks have proliferated, and cellular phones have become relatively mainstream, many corporate employees routinely maintain two phone numbers: their corporate PBX phone number and their cell phone number. Workers who need to be in constant contact with the office or clients often publish both numbers. Workers then need to maintain two separate voice mailboxes and callers are forced to remember two telephone numbers. Once their cell phone number is published, workers are unable to “disconnect” from the work world and disallow incoming business calls. Typically the cell phone voicemail system is far inferior to the PBX voicemail system, and the worker must learn two different sets of procedures for manipulating voicemail. Workers who are away from their PBX “set” are also denied access to other features that their PBX provides. They are unable to transfer calls or to set up conference calls, and any long distance calls are subject to the cell phone carrier rates, not their corporate PBX long-distance rates.
The “call-forwarding” feature provided by most PBX manufacturers may be used to solve this problem. When away from the digital set in the office, the worker programs the PBX to forward all incoming calls to their cell phone. This approach allows for incoming calls to get re-routed to their cell phones, and if the worker answers the cell phone, the call will be completed. However, if the worker doesn't answer the call (e.g., they are away from the cell phone, the cell phone is turned off, they are on another cell phone call, the cell phone network is congested, or they are in an “out-of-range” location), the call typically does not return to the PBX voicemail. This approach also does not attempt to provide any outgoing dialing features such as 4-digit inter-office dialing, transfer, or conference calls. Another disadvantage to call-forwarding is the fact that when the worker answers an incoming call to the cell phone, there is no way for the worker to know whether the call originated from the PBX as a forwarded call, or whether the call is coming directly from the cellular network. Thus, if the worker goes off-duty and forgets to remove call forwarding, he/she may accept calls that would be better routed to a PBX application such as voice mail, or be handled by an on-duty worker.
It is an object of the present invention to substantially overcome the above-identified disadvantages and drawbacks of the prior art.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention improves upon the prior art approaches described herein by employing a “Setless Extender” (also referred to herein as “Setless Gateway”), co-located with a local telephone system, e.g., a PBX system, that is equipped with a “proxy” function. As used herein, the term “set” is used to denote a general telephone device. The term “setless” is used herein to describe the lack of a direct connection to a telephone device. Thus, a Setless Extender describes a device, associated with a PBX system, that provides PBX functions to a user without requiring a direct connection from the user to the PBX system. The setless extender is permanently connected to the PBX, but has an on-demand connection to the user. For a “receive” (i.e., incoming) call, the setless extender signals the user's telephone device (by placing a call or some other mechanism) and if the call is answered and accepted, it routes the received call's voice to the telephone device. For a “place” (i.e., outgoing) call, the user connects to the setless extender (by dialing in or some other mechanism), is authenticated (via password and/or dialback), and issues commands to go offhook and send dialing digits. In both cases the setless extender monitors the connection for user commands that can invoke features of the PBX and routes voice from the PBX to the user's telephone device.
The advantages of the proxy as described herein are as follows
1) It is automated
2) It supervises the calls placed and received
3) It rings the telephone device concurrently with the receive call (i.e., the calling party does not experience delay)
4) The user can access all the call features and te
Horowitz Michael
Vincent Robert
Hong Harry S.
MCK Communications, Inc.
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