Methods and apparatus for providing a called party call disposition options in real time

Abstract

Call screening and other communication services are described. The described methods and apparatus allow a call screening service subscriber to be provided with a caller supplied spoken name when caller ID information is blocked or unavailable. The call screening service subscriber can decide after hearing the spoken identification information how to dispose of the call. A plurality of call disposition options are supported including accept the call, reject the call, transfer to voice mail, etc. A specific salesman reject message is included as one of the call disposition options. In order to support interactive real time subscriber selection of call disposition options and the use of an answering machine by call screening service subscribers, methods and apparatus are used to detect when a human, as opposed to a machine has answered a call. When a call seeking call disposition instructions is answered by an answering machine, the caller is connected to the answering machine without further call screening being performed. Accordingly, the call screening service supports the use of home answering machines to receive messages from calls that would otherwise be blocked or disposed of if the call screening service subscriber answered his or her phone.