Telephonic communications – Centralized switching system – Call distribution to operator
Reexamination Certificate
1998-07-01
2001-10-30
Matar, Ahmad (Department: 2642)
Telephonic communications
Centralized switching system
Call distribution to operator
C379S265020, C379S209010
Reexamination Certificate
active
06310952
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to the field of telecommunications, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for providing automated access to services provided over a telecommunications system.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Telecommunication systems are used to provide many different types of services. Such services include ticket sales for entertainment events, airline reservations, stock-brokerage services, and reservation services for things like golf tee times and hotel rooms. To access these services on a conventional telecommunications system, a caller simply needs to dial the phone number of the service provider and make a service request when the service provider answers the call.
The service provider is not always able to answer the call, however. Sometimes, the service that the service provider provides can become extremely popular and oversubscribed. That is, the number of callers trying to call the service providers can become greater than that which the service provider can physically handle at a given time. A prime example of this occurs when a golf course opens up its golf-tee-time reservation service for Saturday tee-times during the peak of the golf season. Other examples of services that become popular and oversubscribed are services that provide access to World Series tickets and/or Super Bowl tickets. At certain times, such services typically receive many more calls than it has phone lines, and thus become oversubscribed.
When a given service becomes extremely popular and oversubscribed, a party calling the given service, or caller, may receive a busy signal or a voice message stating, for example, that all representatives are busy and that he/she should call again later. The term “caller” as used herein includes general purpose computers operating by stored program control as well as telecommunications equipment operated by humans. Thus, the term “call” as used herein includes voice telephone calls as well as calls or communications over a data network (e.g. TCP/IP, ATM and virtual circuits). When a caller is refused a connection to the service provider due to oversubscription, the caller may be placed in the position of having to repeatedly call the service provider until a connection is finally obtained. Since, in some instances, the caller may not make a connection with the service provider for several hours, such repeat calling can substantially interrupt the daily activities of the caller.
One solution to the just-described oversubscription problem has been to supply the caller with an automatic re-dial feature. Automatic re-dial enables the caller to re-dial a phone number by pressing or activating a single button or function of the terminal equipment or general purpose computer. Although automatic re-dial can reduce the time it takes for a caller to repeatedly call the same service provider (e.g. the same phone number or data network address), it still requires the caller to take the time to physically activate the re-dial feature each time a call to the service provider is made, and it requires the caller to continuously monitor each call to determine whether the service provider has answered the call. As a result, even when provided with automatic re-dial, the caller may still be required to spend a substantial amount of time monitoring each call.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention solves the oversubscription problem without requiring a caller to spend a substantial amount of time monitoring a plurality of calls, and without substantially interrupting the daily activities of the caller. Instead, the caller is only required to make a single call to a so-called queuing system, and hang-up. The queuing system, in accordance with the principles of the present invention, is operable to obtain a set of information regarding the caller, place the caller in a queue that may include other callers trying to reach a given service provider, make a service connection with the service provider, and connect the caller to the service connection when the caller reaches a priority position in the queue. The term “service connection” as used herein refers to a connection between the queuing system and the service provider over a communications system (e.g. a telecommunications system, or a data network such as an ATM network). Advantageously, the queuing system enables the caller to reach the service provider over a communications system without having to repeatedly call the service provider and without having to spend a substantial amount of time waiting for a connection.
In particular embodiments, the set of information provided to the queuing system includes the caller's name, the address at which the caller can be reached (e.g. the caller's phone number or the caller's data network address), the amount of money the caller is willing to bid to move up in the queue, and the time at which the caller wants to be removed from the queue. In such embodiments, the queuing system is composed of several subsystems, that operate asynchronously, and a queue that maintains an ordered rank of callers. The subsystems include a user telephony subsystem, a user interface subsystem, a user agent subsystem, an output subsystem and a billing subsystem.
In such embodiments, the output subsystem is operable to repeatedly call the service provider to make a service connection between the service provider and the queuing system, and to connect a caller having a priority position in the queue to the service connection. The user interface subsystem is operable to enable the caller to interact with the queuing system via a computer screen and keyboard, via speech recognition and speech synthesis for voice control, and/or via touch tones and synthesized speech for control from a standard telephone terminal. The user interface subsystem is also operable to maintain the queue of callers. The user agent subsystem is operable to keep track of each caller's position in the queue, and to initiate a call-back to the caller when the caller reaches a position near a priority position in the queue, and/or when the caller's position in the queue changes dramatically (e.g. due to other callers withdrawing from the queue, or due to other callers making higher bids than the caller). The user telephony subsystem is operable to accept an incoming call from a caller, connect the accepted call to the user interface subsystem, and process requests from the other subsystems. Such requests include requests from the user agent subsystem to call-back a caller when the caller's position in the queue dramatically changes, and requests from the output subsystem to connect a caller having a given priority in the queue to the service provider over the service connection established by the output subsystem.
These and other features of the invention will become more apparent from the detailed description when taken with the drawings. The scope of the invention, however, is limited only by the claims.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5937057 (1999-08-01), Bell et al.
patent: 5946388 (1999-08-01), Walker et al.
patent: 5982873 (1999-11-01), Flockhart et al.
patent: 6002760 (1999-12-01), Gisby
patent: 6088444 (2000-07-01), Walker et al.
Baldwin Michael Scott
Jin Sung-ho
Kochanski Gregory Peter
Lucent Technologies - Inc.
Matar Ahmad
Tieu Benny Q.
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