Method of screening and prioritizing an incoming call

Abstract

A subscriber interface operating as a Personal Agent is provided to simplify, enhance and integrate the currently fragmented telephone services. The Personal Agent enables the subscriber to access and activate telephone network services using voice recognition technology. The subscriber interface is seamlessly integrated with the telephone network to enable the subscriber to perform one or more activation and deactivation commands of telephone features, initiate a call, and take calls at their discretion. The subscriber interface also enables the subscriber to administer the options that tailor the system to the subscriber. Access and activation of telephone features are enabled by the subscriber using voice commands. In particular, the present invention integrates Calling Line ID (CLID) with the names identified in a voice dialing personal directory and/or Name Display database to enable the user to use spoken names to instruct the various telephone features to work specifically on particular lines, e.g. 'Call Forward all calls to voice mail except for 'Mom'. The voice dialing directory (or Name Display database) can then be used to identify 'mom''s phone number(s) which would be matched against the incoming CLIDs to determine how to route incoming calls.