Telephonic communications – Audio message storage – retrieval – or synthesis
Patent
1993-12-03
1998-11-17
Tsang, Fan S.
Telephonic communications
Audio message storage, retrieval, or synthesis
379 89, 379211, 379165, H04M 164
Patent
active
058387722
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to voice services equipment, that is equipment capable of providing announcements to telephone users and recording messages from callers, and with which callers may interact by means of voice instructions or other signals, such as tones or pulses, generated by telephones.
It is known for a telephone call to be completed in one of the following ways: call for the caller to talk directly to a called party or to another VSE; subsequently transfer the call to a VSE or to another called party.
The call transfer actions in (iii) and (iv) may be extended so that more than one transfer is effected to complete a call. A call transfer is generally achieved by signaling to the telephone exchange, such as by using a "recall" command followed by the digit string identifying the new address (telephone number) to which the call is to be transferred. Thus the call transfer action itself is effected by the exchange (although on the basis of a remote command), and thus this transfer facility is only available if the exchange has suitable provision for the facility.
A VSE generally includes a trunk interface, such as a digital trunk interface, which connects audio circuits within the VSE to the telephone network. Depending on the operation performed by the VSE, it is sometimes necessary for the VSE to call out on another line in order to complete a call while the caller is on one line and associated audio circuit of the VSE. In this case, two lines and two audio circuits may be required simultaneously for one call, which represents inefficient resource utilisation. In addition to this, when for example a call transfer is effected via the telephone exchange as described above, the VSE is no longer party to the call and so it is not possible for the VSE to continue monitoring the call, for instance for further voice communications or for signaling messages for either the caller or the called party. In some instances, the VSE may stay on-line after dialing out and connecting to the called party (typically known as a 3-way call), but it is not then normally possible for the VSE to monitor and immediately detect signaling conditions from both the calling and called parties.
According to the invention there is provided a voice services equipment comprising a voice services module having a plurality of audio ports, and switching means responsive to an interactive control signal from the voice services module to provide a selectable switching function between the audio ports and a plurality of connections to a telephone network.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the equipment includes a plurality of connections for incoming calls and a plurality of connections for outgoing calls, and the switching means can provide a switching function between a selected combination of the incoming call connections, outgoing call connections and the voice services module. In the preferred equipment, the switching means can switch between thirty incoming channels, thirty outgoing channels, and thirty channels of the voice services module. Two digital trunk interfaces are provided between the switching means and the telephone network, one for the thirty incoming channels and the other for the thirty outgoing channels. Thus calls on the incoming trunk are handled by the VSE; if a transfer is requested for call completion, then an outbound call (to a called party or to another VSE) is made on the outgoing trunk. Thus, the connections between the incoming and outgoing trunks (and therefore between the caller and the called party) are achieved within the VSE which is accordingly able to monitor either of the trunks for further voice band communications or for signaling messages from the telephone network, and to take appropriate action.
In the preferred equipment, audio recording and replay facilities enable messages recorded by the caller during communication with the VSE to be replayed to the called party prior to connection of the incoming and outgoing trunks to enable the caller to talk directly to the called party.
Th
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Sinden John Stephen
Wilson Jeffrey
Telsis Holdings Limited
Tsang Fan S.
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