Bell Atlantic Network Services, Inc.

Verizon Services Corporation

Google Inc.

Verizon Federal Inc.

Other

Alexander I McAllister

Robert D Farris

Michael J Strauss

James E Curry

Rita N Yadav

Patricia V Hatton

John L Eidsness

James W McKinley, Jr

David John Simpson

Dale Lee Bartholomew

John P Hanle

Laird Wise

Frank E Meador, Iii

Frederick D D'Alessio

James B Hayden, Iii

Robert C Tressler

Kathleen M Casey

James McKinley

Alfred C Keoppe

Mark A Wegleitner

A voice response unit (VRU) includes a silent prompt feature in the form of an intentional delay inserted after a message is given to a caller, during which delay the caller may invoke alternative processing or interrupt current processing. If appropriate alternative or interrupt commands are not received during the delay period, then processing continues as provided in accordance with the previously played message. The duration of this silent prompt delay is carefully selected to provide sufficient response time for the caller to request alternative processing, while avoiding a perceptible or objectionable delay to the average caller not requiring alternative processing.

Voice response apparatus and method of providing automated voice responses with silent prompting

A voice response unit (VRU) includes a silent prompt feature in the form of an intentional delay inserted after a message is given to a caller, during which delay the caller may invoke alternative processing or interrupt current processing. If appropriate alternative or interrupt commands are not received during the delay period, then processing continues as provided in accordance with the previously played message. The duration of this silent prompt delay is carefully selected to provide sufficient response time for the caller to request alternative processing, while avoiding a perceptible or objectionable delay to the average caller not requiring alternative processing. Optimally, this delay period should be within a range of one to two and one-half seconds and, preferably, within a range of 1.2 to 2.3 seconds, an optimal time being 1.8 seconds. The VRU may be included as part of a voice activated dialing system which recognizes a name of a party to be called, identifies the associated telephone number from a telephone directory, and reads the name found back to the caller. The system then uses a silent prompt, waiting for the described 1.8 seconds to allow the user to invoke alternative processing, such as requesting the listing, voice mail options, or a next closest match. If no alternative processing is requested during the 1.8 seconds, processing continues and the named party is called.

The spatial sound conference system enables participants in a teleconference to distinguish between speakers even during periods of interruption and overtalk, identify speakers based on spatial location cues, understand low volume speech, and block out background noise using spatial sound information. Spatial sound information may be captured using microphones positioned at the ear locations of a dummy head at a conference table, or spatial sound information may be added to a participant's monaural audio signal using head-related transfer functions. Head-related transfer functions simulate the frequency response of audio signals across the head from one ear to the other ear to create a spatial location for a sound. Spatial sound is transmitted across a communication channel, such as ISDN, and reproduced using spatially disposed loudspeakers positioned at the ears of a participant. By inserting a spatial sound component in a teleconference, a speaker other than the loudest speaker may be heard during periods of interruption and overtalk. Additionally, speakers may be more readily identified when they have a spatial sound position, and the perception of background noise is reduced.

Spatial sound conference system and method

A voice response unit (VRU) includes a silent prompt feature in the form of an intentional delay inserted after a message is given to a caller, during which delay the caller may invoke alternative processing or interrupt current processing. If appropriate alternative or interrupt commands are not received during the delay period, then processing continues as provided in accordance with the previously played message. The duration of this silent prompt delay is carefully selected to provide sufficient response time for the caller to request alternative processing, while avoiding a perceptible or objectionable delay to the average caller not requiring alternative processing. Optimally, this delay period should be within a range of one to two and one-half seconds and, preferably, within a range of 1.2 to 2.3 seconds, an optimal time being 1.8 seconds.

A server in a network gathers textual information, such as news items, E-mail and the like. From that information, the server develops or identifies messages for use by individual subscribers. The same server that accumulates the text messages or another server in the network converts the textual information in each message to a sequence of speech synthesizer instructions. The converted messages, containing the sequences of speech synthesizer instructions, are transmitted to each identified subscriber's terminal device. A synthesizer in the terminal generates an audio waveform signal, representing the speech information, in response to the instructions. In the preferred embodiment, the terminals utilize concatenative type speech synthesizers, each of which has an associated vocabulary of stored fundamental sound samples. The instructions identify the sound samples, in order. The instructions also provide parameters for controlling characteristics of the signal generated during waveform synthesis for each sound sample in each sequence. For example, the instructions may specify the pitch, duration, amplitude, attack envelope and decay envelope for each sample. The division of the text to speech synthesis processing between the server and the terminals places the cost of the front end processing in the server, which is a shared resource. As a result, the hardware and software of the terminal may be relatively simple and inexpensive. Also, it is possible to upgrade the quality of the synthesis by upgrading the server software, without modifying the terminals.

Personal message service with enhanced text to speech synthesis

Spatial sound conference system and apparatus

A method of creating an application-based subnet for enhanced telephony call processing includes the steps of determining during the processing of a call that the call may require additional call processing services available at a second node located within an application-specific subnet, and transferring the call and call control to the application-specific subnet for further call processing.

Application-specific subnet for enhanced call processing

An intelligent telephone network provides personalized communication services based on a voice identification of the subscriber. Specifically, when a person requests a service, the network executes a speech processing operation, to identify the person or a party that the person is calling as a known subscriber. One or more switching offices of the network utilize profile data associated with the identified subscriber to control services. The personalized service applies both to incoming and outgoing calls. The network can provide the personalized services to several subscribers sharing a common line. For incoming calls to such a line, the network executes an interactive procedure to determine from the caller which subscriber she is calling. If the line is free, the switch applies distinctive ringing. If the line is in use, the switch uses the profile of the identified subscriber to provide a distinctive call waiting tone or a voice message over the line. The tone or voice message indicates to the party using the line that there is a call waiting and specifically identifies the called subscriber. For outgoing calls, the network utilizes a voice verification procedure to identify the actual subscriber. The subscriber's profile controls network processing of the call, including the provision of personal subscriber identification for caller ID, both on ringing calls and with call waiting alert signals.

Personal dial tone service with personalized call waiting

An intelligent telephone network provides personalized communication services based on a voice identification of the subscriber. The network executes a speech processing operation to identify the person or a party that the person is calling as a known subscriber. The network can provide personalized services to several subscribers sharing a common line. For incoming calls to such a line, the network executes an interactive procedure to determine from the caller which subscriber is being called. If the line is free, the switch applies distinctive ringing. If the line is in use, the switching office uses the profile of the identified subscriber to provide a distinctive call waiting tone or a voice message over the line. The tone or voice message indicates to the party using the line that there is a call waiting and specifically identifies the called subscriber.

A networked system of voice-activated dialers is described. When a calling party using a local voice-activated dialer utters a phrase which indicates that information to reach a called party may be available at a remote site, a network connection is established to the remote site, spoken words or phrases are transmitted to the remote site, and the called party information is obtained from the remote site. The called party information is used to provide additional networked services to the calling party such as call-completion, voice messaging, or paging. These additional networked services may use the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and an existing signaling network such as the Signaling System No. 7 network.

Networked voice-activated dialing and call-completion system

A call processing apparatus incorporates a robust database supporting both autodialing and autoattendant functions. Incoming calls not directed to a specific telephone extension and any call to a dedicated autodialer function are answered and the caller prompted to speak the name of the desired person or department. A speech recognition platform analyzes the spoken name to provide one or more searchable text strings representing the various spellings associated with the spoken name. The database is searched to retrieve corresponding terminal address instructions such as the telephone number or extension of the named party and call routing to the address is initiated. Alternatively, in an autoattendant mode, a subscriber calls a telephone number associated with a specified service such as a hotline and is asked to identify himself by name. The speech recognition platform again provides a corresponding searchable text string used to retrieve subscriber-specific information for handling the call. Based on the retrieved information, the caller is prompted to give any additional information required to process the call and compose and send an e-mail message to an appropriate person or department. Requests or messages not having an appropriate prestored or formatted text message equivalent may instead be sent as voice message files attached to an e-mail message.

Multifunction autoattendant system and method of operation thereof

A telephone directory search method and system intelligently utilizes secondary information contained in subscriber listings to disambiguate search results and provide telephone number and other data associated with a desired party. Upon identification of more than one listing for a particular requested named party, the system searches through secondary information for each of the parties to identify distinguishing information which is solicited from the calling party. Thus, where there are multiple listings for a particular name, the system attempts to identify distinguishing categories of information such as location, department, terminal type, etc., helpful in refocusing the search and eliminating listings from further consideration. The system considers the size of the candidate list in providing prompts, enumerating secondary data for selection when there are few qualifying entries, while generally soliciting information pertaining to the identified category when there is a wide range of secondary information entries to be considered. To enhance user confidence in system understanding of name information, the system incorporates the name pronunciation used by the calling party in system formulation of prompts and announcements provided back to that caller.

Apparatus for and method of disambiguation of directory listing searches utilizing multiple selectable secondary search keys

A communication service loads subscriber profile information corresponding to an intended call recipient in a call processing register of a switch serving a link to a destination station and transmits a distinct predetermined call alert signal over the link to the destination station based on the loaded subscriber service profile information. The distinct call alert signal identifies the intended recipient subscriber.

A voice response unit (VRU) includes a library of content equivalent messages and prompts which may be substituted for one another to vary the presentation of messages provided to a user and thereby more closely simulate a human operator. Groups of content equivalent messages and prompts include multiple audio files, each with a slightly different wording or phraseology, but conveying substantially the same information. After a particular message content is selected, the corresponding group of messages is identified and a random number is generated and used to select one of the audio files of the group for playback. The VRU may be included as part of an automated dialer or auto attendant. In such a system, a calling party is greeted by the VRU and is prompted by a randomly selected prompt to speak the name of the called party. The system accesses a telephone directory, attempts to identify a name corresponding to the name spoken, and dials the number. The caller may interrupt or request alternative processing during a predetermined time period after the system has selected and read back a closest matching name or its corresponding telephone number. If processing is halted by the caller indicating that the name or telephone number selected by the system is incorrect, the system will attempt to identify a second closest guess, or if none is available, to ask the caller to reinput the name of the called party. Alternative processing includes hearing the telephone number without having it dialed, and diverting a call to voice mail.

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Silver Spring, MD, United States of America

Alexander I McAllister