At+t Corp.

Lucent Technologies Inc.

Nancy S Murray

David Phillip Silverman

Mark Jeffrey Foladare

Shelley Betty Goldman

Roy Philip Weber

Yao-Chung Tsao

Albert Friedes

Jerry Eisdorfer

Allen Eisdorfer

Susanne Watson Moroses

Susanne Moroses

A method and apparatus for prioritizing telphone calls that enables a caller to specify priority criteria relating to the calls and a recipient to specify priority criteria relating to the treatment of the calls.

Method and apparatus for prioritizing telephone calls

a telecommunications carrier other than the carrier of last contact is arranged to a) recognize that the telephone to which a particular call is placed is a disconnected telephone and b) provide different call treatment for the call, e.g., different call handling or different call features or services, as compared to the treatment the telecommunications carrier provides for the same call to the same telephone when it is recognized that the telephone is not disconnected. Advantageously, no effort is wasted in an attempt to complete the telephone call to a disconnected telephone. Such different treatments include 1) simply making no attempt to route the call to the disconnected telephone via the network of last contact, 2) routing the call to a secondary, alternate telephone, and 3) initiating transmission of a page to a pager that is associated with the owner of the disconnected telephone.

Technique for use in processing telephone calls

With the advent of personal digital assistants (PDAs) having modems for information, e.g., facsimile and/or data, transmission over wireless connections, as well as the capability for voice communications, we have recognized that is possible to communicate with a person, wherever they are, in whatever form is desired. In order to do so in a manner that simulates the way a person at a fixed location having a separate telephone, fax machine and data modem would communicate, incorporate into a PDA is a) a receiver for a wireless actuation signal that indicates that a communication of some type is waiting for a called party; b) an outgoing connection origination unit that establishes a connection from the PDA to the waiting communication; c) a discriminator, which makes a determination as to the type of communication that is waiting; and d) a selection unit that routes the information signals received over the connection established by the PDA to an appropriate communication unit within the PDA, e.g., a fax modem, data modem, or voice communication unit, the appropriate communication unit being selected in response to the type of communication that was determined by the discriminator to be waiting. The PDA owner may optionally be alerted only when 1) an information transmission is successfully completed and the received information is waiting in the PDA for access by its owner, or 2) when a voice connection has successfully been established to the communication originator who continues to indicate a readiness to communicate.

Personal mobile communication system

We have recognized that in the prior art, to insure that there is at least some communication between the calling and called parties, when the called party is unavailable to take a call, the calling party may be connected to an alternate destination, e.g., a voice messaging system, and the caller's telephone call is considered completed. If the called party thereafter becomes available, the called party is not connected to the caller's telephone call. However, in accordance with the principles of the invention, this problem is overcome by, in response to receipt of an indication that the called party is available for a caller's telephone call after the caller's telephone call has already been connected to an alternate destination, a) disconnecting the caller's telephone call from the alternate destination and, instead, b) connecting it the called party, thus interrupting the connection between the caller and the alternate destination. Optionally, a tone or announcement may be supplied to the caller to indicate that the called party will now be connected 'live' to the caller.

personal mobile communication system

It is known in the prior art to, when a telephone customer is unavailable to take a call, page the customer, thereby notifying the customer that a telephone call is waiting. The customer may then call in to a meet-me bridge to be connected to the incoming telephone call. However, if the customer does not respond to the page in time, prior art systems provide for the calling party's call to be routed to an alternate destination, e.g., a voice messaging system. The calling party's telephone call is thereby considered completed. If the customer thereafter becomes available, the customer is not connected to the caller's telephone call even if the caller is still connected to the alternate destination. In accordance with the principles of the invention, this problem is overcome by, in response to receipt of the telephone call from the customer, a) disconnecting the caller's telephone call from the alternate destination and b) connecting the caller's telephone call with the customer's call substantially contemporaneous with receipt of the customer's call.

Personal mobile communication system having meet-me bridge reconnect

In a noisy environment, e.g., a car traveling down the road with the radio playing, a user who prefers that his pager provide him with an audible alert in response to an actuation of the pager may not be able to hear such an audible alert supplied by the pager. To overcome this difficulty, a pager that is set to an audible alert mode is arranged to change its alerting for a particular actuation of the pager from audible to tactile only when the ambient sound level of the environment in which the pager is located is greater than a predetermined threshold level. For each actuation of the pager that the ambient sound level in the environment in which the pager is located is less than the predetermined threshold level, the pager alerts audibly. Optionally, if the pager also determines that it is no longer being worn on the person of a user, the pager alerts audibly regardless of whether the ambient sound level is greater than the predetermined threshold level. Advantageously, as much of the time as feasible the user receives only the type of alert he desires, namely audible, while receiving the alternative form of alert, namely tactile, only when necessary to avoid loss of the page by the failure of the use to perceive the alert.

Electronic device having selectable alert modes

A method and apparatus for prioritizing telephone calls that allow the caller to specify priority criteria relating to a call and the recipient to specify priority criteria relating to the treatment of incoming calls. The caller designates priority of the call based on specified priority criteria. The caller's specified priority criteria is stored in a database in the telephone service provider's network, is retrieved from the database when the caller places a call and is transmittal with the call through the telephone network. The call recipient designates specified priority criteria for incoming calls. The call recipient's specified priority criteria is stored in a database and is retrieved from the database in response to incoming calls. The treatment of a call, i.e. connection, termination or redirection, is based on comparison of the caller's specified priority criteria and the call recipient's specified priority criteria.

Growing community of inventors

Morris Township, NJ, United States of America

Nancy S Murray