At+t Corp.

Lucent Technologies Inc.

At&t Bell Laboratories

William E Hagerman

Earle H West, Iii

Ted Moulos

Nicholas M DeVito

Sankara R Polepalle

Jack Ray Penrod

Mark C Baker

Garry R Daly

Nancy S Stevens

A vertically expandable keyboard includes keys arranged in a plurality of rows. The keyboard has a retracted configuration wherein the rows are generally coplanar with each other and an extended configuration wherein at least some of the rows of keys in the home position are extended from the retracted configuration such that the rows are not coplanar with other rows. In the extended configuration, the rows can be sequentially tiered such that each row is higher than the preceding row moving from the front row to the back row. The keyboard includes lifters for lifting the rows of keys to the extended configuration. The keyboard can be part of an electronic device such as a portable computer.

Vertically expandable keyboard

A method and apparatus that allows different likelihoods of call completion during very heavy call loading conditions to be supplied to different customers. Customers are assigned to different levels of service and these levels of service are used to manage call completion in throughout the telecommunication network during very heavy call loading periods. Thus, a securities broker may have a higher likelihood of completing a call near the close of a trading session than the average telephone customer. However, each caller may be offered an opportunity to immediately increase his or her level of service and thus likelihood of completing a call to the highest available level if a call is not completed at the caller's lower level of service.

Method and apparatus for prioritizing a telephone call according to a

An arrangement for selectively routing traffic to alternate destinations. If the network or switch for accessing the primary destination is inaccessible (i.e., out of service), as opposed to simply being busy, calls are routed to an alternate destination; however, if the primary destination is simply busy, calls are not routed to any alternate destination. This is useful, for example, for emergency (E911) calls which are routed to alternate emergency bureaus only if the network or switch for accessing the home bureau is out of service. Alternatively, the tandem switch can select an alternate toll carrier on the basis of allocation of traffic to different alternate toll carriers. The same general kind of arrangement can be used to route calls to an alternate toll carrier if the preferred toll carrier selected by the customer is not accessible.

Routing calls destined for inaccessible destinations

In case of a disaster at one of a plurality of customer's locations, it is desirable to provide for a massive rerouting of telephone calls to that customer. A SafetyNet Service Reconfiguration (SSR) tool enables a network service provider to provide a recovery service for the event where a customer's business location becomes 'non-functional'. By using the SSR tool, the telephone network service provider can preplan how to reroute a customer's incoming calls to alternate business locations, or to the employees' homes. The preplanning includes storing the local central office recent change (RC) messages necessary to implement an SSR plan, in RC text files and in executable data files. The RC text files can be easily maintained, and new RC executable files generated, as the customer's recovery needs change. To invoke an SSR plan, the network service provider starts execution of the designated RC executable file, via a single SSR tool command. When the SSR plan is invoked, the data from the RC executable file is activated, thereby rerouting the traffic.

Telecommunication disaster plan

Growing community of inventors

Naperville, IL, United States of America

William E Hagerman