Method and apparatus for telephone call sub-billing

Abstract

A 'breakout' of telecommunications toll calls on a per-station basis is provided to households or other telecommunications endpoints which have subscribed to only a single analog telephone line. Subscribers wishing to avail themselves of such 'station set billing' will have purchased and installed telephone stations sets which are adapted to transmit to the telecommunications service provider, during a call, e.g., at the start thereof, a signal carrying a code which identifies that station set. The subscriber, additionally, will have registered the station set's code, which may be marked on the bottom of the instrument, with the telecommunications service provider. Thus the service provider is able to identify which station set within the household a call is being made from or to which a collect call is being made. The telecommunications service provider can thus readily 'tag' the toll charge for that call in the subscriber's monthly bill as having been made from, or billed to, a particular station set, hereby effectuating the inventive 'station set billing' service. The station set may transmit the code at its own initiative. Alternatively, it may transmit the code in response to a query signal issued by the telecommunications service provider's equipment during call set-up. Preferably, the station set's code signal, as well as the query signal are of a type that cannot be heard by the human auditory system, such as a spread spectrum signal, thereby making the interchange of query and identifying signal imperceptible to the callers.