Telephonic communications – Plural exchange network or interconnection – With interexchange network routing
Reexamination Certificate
1998-01-23
2002-07-30
Tsang, Fan (Department: 2645)
Telephonic communications
Plural exchange network or interconnection
With interexchange network routing
C379S088250
Reexamination Certificate
active
06427010
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to switched communications networks providing voice mail services, more particularly to a system and method for providing voice mail services to telephone subscribers having ported numbers assigned from one central office to a new central office.
2. Background Art
Voice mail has become commonplace not only in business usage but also on an individual telephone service subscriber basis through service from a central office. A voice mail system is a specialized computer that stores messages in digital form on a disk. The voice is generally digitized, usually at a much slower rate than the 64 Kb/s signal the central office uses in its switching network. The digitized voice is compressed and stored on a hard disk that maintains the voice mail operating system, system prompts, and greetings, and the messages themselves. A processor controls the compressing, storing, retrieving, forwarding and purging of files. A comprehensive review of exemplary voice mail systems and voice messaging systems is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,631,948 to Bartholomew et al., the disclosure of which is incorporated in its entirety herein by reference.
FIG. 1
is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary voice mail implementing communication system, corresponding to
FIG. 5
of the above-incorporated Bartholomew et al. patent. As shown in
FIG. 1
, at least one switching system
10
is connected to a centralized message service voice mail
20
. The switching system
10
may be a local or “end office” type telephone central office switch, such as a 1AESS or 5ESS switch sold by American Telephone and Telegraph.
Structurally, the switching system
10
is a standard central office telephone switch. Each subscriber has at least one piece of customer premises equipment, illustrated as telephone station sets
31
to
33
. Local telephone lines
35
to
37
serve as communication links between each of the telephone station sets
31
to
33
and the end office switching system
10
. The subscriber station equipment can comprise any communication device compatible with the line. Where the line is a standard voice grade telephone line, for example, the subscriber station equipment could include facsimile devices, modems etc.
The centralized message service or voice mail system in
FIG. 1
comprises voice messaging equipment such as a voice mail system
20
. Although referred to as “voice” messaging equipment, equipment
20
may have the capability of storing messages of a variety of different types as well as voice messages. For example, a single system
20
may receive incoming messages in the form of audible messages, such as voice messages, as well as text format data messages, image data format (e.g., facsimile) messages, etc. Message service systems having the capability to store messages in a variety of audible, data and image formats are known, see e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 5,193,110 to Jones et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,008,926 to Misholi and U.S. Pat. No. 4,652,700 to Matthews et al.
The illustrated voice mail system
20
includes a digital switching system (DSS)
21
, a master control unit (MCU)
23
, a number of voice processing units (VPU's)
25
and a master interface unit (MIU) or concentrator
27
. The master control unit (MCU)
23
of the voice mail system
20
is a personal computer type device programmed to control overall operations of the system
20
.
Each of the voice processing units
25
includes or connects to one or more digital mass storage type memory units (not shown) in which the actual messages are stored. The mass storage units, for example, may comprise magnetic disc type memory devices. Although not specifically illustrated in the drawing, the voice processing units
25
also include appropriate circuitry to transmit and receive audio signals via T
1
type digital audio lines. To adapt the system
20
to receive information other than voice and/or offer services other than voice mail, one or more of VPU's
25
might be reprogrammed to run other types of applications and/or process other types of incoming information. For example, one such unit might process facsimile information, one might process E-mail, etc.
An ETHERNET type digital network
29
carries data signals between the MCU
23
and the voice processing units
25
. The Ethernet network
29
also carries stored messages, in digital data form, between the various voice processing units
25
. The system
20
further includes T
1
type digitized audio links
28
between the DSS switch
21
and each of the voice processing units
25
.
The voice mail system
20
connects to the switching system
10
via a number of simplified message desk interface (SMDI) type data lines
41
. Specifically, these SMDI links
41
connect between one or more data units (not shown) in the end office switching system
10
and the MIU
27
. Each SMDI line
41
carries 2400 baud RS-
232
data signals in both directions between the voice mail system
20
and the switching system
10
. The MIU
27
is a data concentrator which effectively provides a single connection of as many as thirty-two SMDI lines into the MCU
23
of the voice mail system.
The voice mail system
20
also connects to the end office switching system
10
via a number of voice lines
43
which form a multi-line hunt group (MLHG) between the switch matrix within the switching system
10
and the DSS switch
21
of the voice mail system
20
. Typically, the MLHG lines
43
consist of a number of T
1
type trunk circuits which each carry
24
voice channels in digital time division multiplexed format.
Calls can be forwarded to the voice mail system
20
in response to calls to subscriber's lines served by the end office switching system
10
. When the end office switching system
10
forwards a call to the voice mail system
20
, the switching system
10
will also provide various data relating to the call via one of the SMDI links
41
and the MIU
27
. In particular, the switching system
10
transmits data to the MCU
23
of the voice mail system
20
indicating which line of the multi-line hunt group
43
, i.e. which T
1
trunk and which channel on the trunk, that the new call will come in on. The exchange
10
also transmits data via SMDI link
41
identifying the called telephone number and the telephone number of the caller. For a call forwarded to a mailbox, the data from the exchange indicates the reason for the forwarding, and the caller telephone number (typically the directory number assigned to the called subscriber's normal telephone line) identifies which subscriber the forwarded call relates to. The master control unit
23
uses the multi-line hunt group line information and the subscriber's directory number to internally route the forwarded call though DSS switch
21
and one of the internal T
1
links
28
to an available voice processing unit
25
and identifies the relevant subscriber to that voice processing unit via the Ethernet
25
.
For each party who subscribes to a voice mail service provided by the centralized messaging system
20
, the MCU
23
stores information designating one of the voice processing units
25
as the “home” unit for that subscriber. Each voice processing unit
25
stores generic elements of prompt messages in a common area of its memory. Personalized elements of prompt messages, for example recorded representations of each subscriber's name spoken in the subscriber's own voice, are stored in designated memory locations within the subscriber's “home” voice processing unit.
Hence, the voice mail messaging system
20
is configured for receiving forwarded telephone calls for a called party (e.g., subscriber
31
) having subscriber profile information stored in the end office switching system
10
. Hence, upon detecting a no answer/busy condition on the corresponding line
37
, the end office switching system can forward the incoming call to the MLHG
43
and supply the appropriate information associated with the called party across the SMDI
Farris Robert D.
Gardner Jeffery A.
Putt Nora J
Tsang Fan
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