Lucent Technologies Inc.

James Allen Kowal

David B Smith

Stuart Mandel Garland

Mary Rita Otto

Eric Edward Kampmeier

John Andrew Johnson

Bijay K Roy

Hilton Manuel Nicholson

A telephone interface ( ) that supports a first and a second conference call service is provided in a telephone-capable apparatus ( ). An input device ( ) is further provided, allowing a conference call conferee to provide participation status data to a controller ( ) of the apparatus. The controller provides a message to a switch ( ), responsive to the participation status data, instructing the switch to provide the apparatus with communication resources commensurate with the participation status data. When the participation status data indicates that the conferee is a speaking and listening conferee, the message instructs the switch to provide resources sufficient to support the first conference call service and a send-only version of the second conference call service. When the participation status data indicates that the conferee is a listening-only conferee, the message instructs the switch to provide resources sufficient to support a receive-only version of the second conference call service.

Apparatus and method for providing conference call service

A system for allowing a plurality of administrators to control switching system resources in a telephone system. A switching system is communicatively connected to a server computer. The server computer maintains databases that store the resources that a plurality administrators are allowed to access and the functions that each administrator is allowed to perform. When the server computer receives a request from an administrator for an administrative function to be performed by the switching system, the software executed by the server computer accesses the database and determines if the administrator is allowed to perform the requested function and if the resources are available to administrator. If the administrator has made a valid request the server computer generates a command and transmits the command to the switching system that performs the function requested in the command. The server computer may also maintain a database that maintains a pool of unused resources. These resources may then be allocated to administrators upon a demand basis. Any unfulfilled request can then be logged and used to allocate resources in the future or to add additional resources to the system.

Telephone system having multiple administrators of switching system resources

A method and apparatus for communicating between Customer Premises Equipment, (CPE) alarm sensing devices, and alarm monitoring stations. The sensing devices communicate with an end office switch by transmitting a message, such as a string of Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency, (DTMF) digits to that switch. At the switch, the message is processed and a determination is made which of a plurality of alarm monitoring stations should receive the alarm indication. One or more data packets are sent to the selected alarm monitoring stations with the packets identifying the source of the alarm indication, and the type of alarm indication. Advantageously, the packetized communication between the end office switch and the alarm monitoring system allows a high volume of alarm indications to be sent to an alarm monitoring station, because individual telephone connections are not required for each such alarm message.

Home/commercial security monitoring system

The customer performs a search or otherwise defines selected data maintained by the information provider. Once the selected data is identified, the information provider maintains the requested data, typically by maintaining pointers identiying the data, but delays delivery of the requested data until the scheduled delivery time, such as a particular day and time requested by the customer or a non-peak period as determined by the information provider. When the information provider determines that delivery is appropriate, it makes a request for a suppressed ringing connection to a switching system. The switching system responds to the request for connection by creating a suppressed ringing connection where a silent alert tone or digital alert signal is transmitted to the customer premise equipment. The customer premise equipment includes a receiving system that receives one or more tones from the switching system over the suppressed ringing connection and becomes active. Upon being activated, the receiving system causes the customer's computer or portions of the computer such as a particular memory to power-up such that the computer can receive the data from the information provider.

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Naperville, IL, United States of America

James Allen Kowal