Verizon Patent and Licensing Inc.

Apurva Pathak

Sundar Rajan Padmanabhan

Xiaodong Zhang

Carson C Burrus

Sherrill A Moss

Rachna R Sheth

David Lobo

Mary T Thomas

A set-top box (STB) obtains a listing of businesses responsive to a request for a business directory search from a customer. The STB receives, from a customer, a selection of a business from the listing of businesses to call. The STB performs one of: initiating, at the STB, a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call to a phone number associated with the business and connecting the VoIP call to a mobile device, or other VoIP device, associated with the customer via a VoIP network, or initiating, at the STB, establishment of a call between a phone number associated with the business and a mobile device associated with the customer via a telephone network. The STB sends data associated with the request for the business directory search to a billing server for billing the customer for the request for the business directory search received at the STB.

Business directory assistance via STB

Methods and systems are disclosed for providing context information pertaining to a request of a directory assistance operator service based on a context identifier. The context identifier permits the directory assistance operator service to obtain context information including a location of the user and a location relevant to a directory listing search. The context identifier also can be used to pass context information or directory listing information across multiple types of user devices that use different types of services including a television service, a mobile service, a landline telephone service, and Internet service, and third party devices to permit enhanced directory assistance services to be provided to the user.

Directory assistance service based on context identifier

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White Plains, NY, United States of America

Apurva Pathak