WO2002025911A2

WO2002025911A2 - Direct ring telephone apparatus and method

Info

Publication number: WO2002025911A2
Application number: PCT/US2001/029215
Authority: WO
Inventors: Robert G. Meldrum; James R. Cheshire
Original assignee: Simulring, Inc.
Priority date: 2000-09-20
Filing date: 2001-09-20
Publication date: 2002-03-28
Also published as: AU2001292768A1; WO2002025911A3

Abstract

Method and apparatus for a direct ring system configured to provide a telephone extesion number and an outpulse character string to an automated telephone answering system so that an incoming call is directly connected to the telephone corresponding to the telephone extension number. The outpulse character string and extension number automatically navigates through the prompts requred by the automated telephone answering system transparent to the caller so that a caller is in effect 'directly' connected to a person they wish to reach.

Description

DIRECT RING TELEPHONE APPARATUS AND METHOD

Inventors: Robert G. Meldrum and James R. Cheshire

This application claims priority of U. S. Patent Application No. 09/665,717, filed September 20, 2000, entitled Direct Ring Telephone Apparatus and Method.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of Invention

The present invention relates generally to telephone communication systems, and more particularly, the present invention relates to a direct ring telephone system and method.

2. Description of the Related Art

Many organizations, such as businesses, government agencies, schools and universities, health care facilities, etc. automated telephone answering systems. Typically an organization is assigned a single telephone number. When a call is placed on this number, it is answered and processed by the automated telephone answering system. For example, the automated telephone answering system generates a recorded message asking for the caller to enter the extension of the person they wish to speak to using the keypad on the user's telephone. Once the extension is entered, the call is forwarded to the recipient's telephone. Although useful, automated telephone answering systems have their drawbacks. A caller may often not know a person's extension and is therefore required to enter the name of the person they wish to reach using the keypad on the telephone. This not only takes a long time, but it is annoying to callers. Finally if a caller does not know how to spell the recipient's name, they may not be able to reach the party at all. For these reasons, callers typically prefer talking to a "live" operator. Organizations also prefer to have an operator answer their telephone because it is more professional and customer friendly. However cost, staffing shortages, and other issues may necessitate the use of an automated telephone answering system.

A direct ring telephone system and method that automatically navigates through the prompts required by an automated telephone answering machine so that a caller is effectively directly connected to a person they wish to reach is therefore needed.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a direct ring telephone system and method. The system comprises a direct ring system configured to provide a telephone extension number and an outpulse character string to an automated telephone answering system so that an incoming call is directly connected to the telephone corresponding to the telephone extension number. The outpulse character string and extension number automatically navigates through the prompts required by the automated telephone answering system transparent to the caller so that a caller is in effect "directly" connected to a person they wish to reach. These and other advantages of the present invention will become apparent upon reading the following detailed description and studying the various figures of the drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention may best be understood by reference to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:

Figure 1 is a diagram of a telephone communication system including the direct ring system of the present invention.

Figure 2 is a block diagram of the direct ring system according to the present invention. Figure 3 is a flow diagram illustrating the operation of the direct ring system of the present invention.

Figure 4 is a flow diagram illustrating the operation of a simultaneous ring and a direct ring system according to the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

Referring to Figure 1, a diagram of a telephone communication system including the direct ring system of the present invention is shown. The direct ring system 10 is coupled to an organization 12 through a telephone line 14 and a standard telephone network 16. The organization includes an automated answering system 18 coupled between the telephone network 16 and a plurality of telephone extensions 20a- 20n (i.e., Joe is at extension 30, Tom at extension 31 and Mary at extension 39). According to various embodiments of the invention, the telephone line 14 is a Primary Rate Interface (PRI) service between the telephone network 12 and the direct ring system 10. With the PRI service, a large number of telephone numbers (i.e., 500 or more) are associated with the telephone line 14. Telephone calls received by the telephone network 12 corresponding to the PRI telephone numbers are thus forwarded to the direct ring system 10. With this arrangement, each extension 20a -20n within organization 12 is assigned to one of the PRI telephone numbers. One telephone line 14 can therefore service one organization provided it has fewer extensions 20 than offered by the PRI service. Otherwise additional PRI lines may be needed. In the alternative, one PRI line can be used to service a number of organizations if the total number of extensions does not exceed the number of telephone numbers associated with the PRI line. The automated answering system 18 can be any type of automatic phone answering system, such as those made by Lucent Technologies, Active Voice or Nortel. The telephone network 16 can be any type of public or private telephone network such as US West, Nextlink Communications and MCI Communications.

The direct ring system 10 includes a storage device (not shown) that maintains a database 30 with a plurality of records 32a - 32n. Each record 32 includes fields for a direct ring number that corresponds to one of the PRI numbers associated with line 14, the phone number of the associated organization 12, the extension 20 associated with the direct ring number, the name of the party at the extension 20, and the outpulse character string required to navigate through the automated answering system 18. The fields in record 32a for example include the direct ring number (650) 555-1000, the organization number (650)716-5000, extension 30, the name "Joe" and an outpulse character string (1, #, *...) respectively. The outpulse character string includes the characters required to navigate through the automated answering system 18 to a specific extension 20.

For example, one embodiment of the present invention uses a colon ( : ) character to represent a pause while waiting for the subscriber's automated answering system to receive the call. A comma ( , ) indicates a two-second pause. The subscriber name (in this example, Joe) is used for reference purposes and is not used as a dial string. The asterisk ( * ) and pound sign ( # ) characters are outpulsed as their counterparts on a Touch-Tone keypad. In this embodiment the dial string would appear as 6507165000:,30#. This would indicate that the system would dial the automated answering system (6507165000), wait for the system to answer ( : ), pause for two seconds (,) and outpulse the subscriber's extension number followed by the pound sign ( 30#). While this is happening, the caller hears normal ringing, and is unaware of the dialing the system is performing to navigate the automated answering system. It should be noted that the outpulse character string described herein is only exemplary. In other embodiments, different characters would be used as required by the automated answering system 18.

Referring to Figure 2, a block diagram of the direct ring system 10 according to the present invention is shown. The direct ring system 10 includes a voice card 40 coupled to the telephone line 14, a server 42, direct ring software for controlling the operation of the direct ring system 10 as described below, a hardware driver 46 for interfacing between the voice card 40 and the server 42, and a storage device 48 for maintaining the database 30. In one embodiment, the voice card is a model D480/SC- 2T, from Intel Corporation's subsidiary Dialogic. The telephone line 14 is an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) line with Two B-Channel transfer capability. For example, the user telephone line 14 may be a "primary" twenty-three B-Channel and one D-Channel line with six lines used for incoming calls and seventeen lines used for outgoing calls. In alternative embodiments, other types of user telephone lines 14 may be used, such as the ISDN PRI European standard and ISDN Basic Rate Interface PRI). In yet other embodiments, the number of channels provided on the telephone line 14 may vary depending on the number of organizations and extensions using the direct ring system 10 and the amount of telephone call traffic. In the situations where the number of organizations, extensions and call traffic is high, multiple telephone lines 14 and voice cards 40 may be needed.

Referring to Figure 3, a flow diagram 50 illustrating the operation of the direct ring system of the present invention is shown. When a call is received on line 14 from the telephone network 16 (step 52), the server 42 causes a ringing signal to be generated (step 54) so the caller hears a ringing signal. The server 42 then accesses the database 30 on storage device 48 (step 56) and determines if the incoming call is associated with a direct ring number (decision diamond 57). If no, the sequence terminates. If yes, the direct dial system places a call to the organization using the associated organization phone number (step 58) and waits for the automated answering system 18 to answer (step 60). The server 42 then generates the outpulse character string (62) and the extension (step 64) to navigate through the automated answering system 18 and to cause the phone associated with the extension to ring. Eventually the phone is answered by being picked up or by a voice mail system (step 66). When this occurs, the server 42 causes a Two-B channel transfer between the incoming caller and the connected extension (step 68). The direct ring system 10 is therefore switched out of the connection and does not perform conferencing or bridging. In accordance with another embodiment, the direct ring system 10 may maintain the connection between the caller and the target extension number for the duration of the call if conferencing or bridging is desired. In the aforementioned co-pending application, a simultaneous ring system is disclosed. In this application, a simultaneous ring system configured to be coupled to the end-user line of the telephone network is described. In response to receiving an incoming call on the user-line, the simultaneous ring system simultaneously rings target phone numbers and then transfers the telephone call to the telephone network if a connection to one of the target phone numbers is made. In addition, the system includes features for introducing dynamic and/or configurable delays between the placement of phone calls to ensure that all the target phones ring substantially simultaneously and a way for a default target number to be selected so that a caller can leave a voice mail message or the like if none of the target numbers are answered after a predetermined period of time. For these and other details on this system, see the above-identified co-pending application, incorporated by reference herein for all purposes.

Figure 4 is a flow diagram 80 illustrating the operation of a simultaneous ring 30 and a direct ring system according to the present invention. Steps 52 through 57 are essentially the same as described above, and therefore are not described in detail herein. If it is determined that the received call is for a direct dial/simultaneous ring number (step 82), then an optional dynamic and/or a static delay is introduced as the calls are made to ensure that all ring substantially simultaneously (step 84). The system then waits to determine if one of the calls is answered (decision diamond 86). If answered by one of the targets (step 88), then a Two-B transfer occurs, all the other calls are terminated (step 90), and the sequence is done (step 92). On the other hand, if the direct dial phone is answered first (step 94), then steps 60 through 70 are performed as described above and all calls to other targets are terminated. In situations where none of the phones are answered, control would be transferred to the default number, regardless if it is a target or a direct phone number.

Although only a few embodiments of the present invention have been described, it should be understood that the present invention may be embodied in many other specific forms without departing from the true spirit or the scope of the invention. Therefore, the present examples are to be considered as illustrative and not restrictive, and the invention is not to be limited to the details given herein, but may be modified with the scope of the appended claims.

Claims

What is claimed is:

1. A method of offering direct ring telephone services for an organization having an automated telephone answering system connected to a telephone network, comprising: associating a telephone number to a telephone having an extension number within the organization; and ringing the telephone corresponding to the associated telephone number when an incoming call at the telephone number is received by providing the extension and an outpulse character string to the automated telephone answering machine to connect the incoming call to the telephone.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising transferring the incoming call to the telephone network after the connection to the telephone is made.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a ring signal after the incoming call is received so the caller hears the ringing signal.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising terminating the ringing signal when the incoming call is connected to the telephone. s

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising retrieving, the extension number from a database when the incoming call at the telephone number is received.

6 The method of claim 1, further comprising retrieving the outpulse character string from a database when the incoming call at the telephone number is received.

7. The method of claim 1 ,wherein the outpulse character string is configured to automatically navigate through the automated telephone answering system so that the caller is effectively connected directly to the telephone.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising generating a ringing signal so the caller hears a ring during the time when the outpulse character string is automatically navigating through the automated telephone answering system.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising assigning a plurality of telephone numbers to a plurality of telephones having extension numbers associated the organization and ringing the plurality of telephones when incoming calls to the telephone numbers are received respectively.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising simultaneously ringing other telephones associated with the telephone when the incoming call to the assigned telephone number is received.

11. An apparatus configured to cause the direct ringing of a telephone having an extension number associated with an automated telephone answering system comprising a direct ring system configured to provide the extension number and an outpulse character string to the automated telephone answering system to connect an incoming to the direct ring system to the telephone corresponding to the extension number.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the direct ring system is further configured to be coupled to the automatic telephone answering machine through a telephone network.

13. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the direct ring system further comprises a storage device configured to maintain a database.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the database contains one or more of the following: a telephone number associated with a telephone line coupled to the direct ring system; a second telephone number associated with the automated telephone answering system; the extension number of the telephone associated with the automated telephone answering system; and the outpulse character string.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the database further comprises a plurality of the telephone numbers, the second telephone numbers, the extension numbers and the outpulse character strings respectively.

16. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein a telephone line couples the direct ring system to the telephone network.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the telephone line comprises one of the following types of telephone lines: a primary rate service line; and/or an ISDN line with Two-B Channel transfer capabilities.