Patent Application
20070036288
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for providing telephone customers with variable length personalized telephone numbers.
A major innovation in telephony was the introduction of 800 telephone numbers. These numbers had the characteristic that they were not tied to specific geographic locations and, as a matter of fact, could serve the entire country. As 800 service grew more popular, companies tried to obtain telephone numbers which represented the company or a service. For example, the Automobile Association of America has a nationwide telephone number, AAA-HELP, which can be used for summoning emergency road service.
Outside the field of direct telephony, the Internet, which uses alphanumeric keyboards, allows users to specify, for example, an e-mail address which can contain their name plus enough additional information to distinguish them from other users.
Applicant has carefully studied these plans and has recognized their significant limitations. 800 type service is limited to the service wherein the called party pays for the telephone charges. It is further limited to one of a number of prefixes (e.g., 800, 888, 877 . . . ) and a standard length 7 digit number (although additional numbers ignored by the telephone system can be dialed for identification purposes).
While the name arrangement for the Internet e-mail service is extremely flexible, it requires an alphanumeric keyboard and cannot be directly applied to ordinary telephone calls.
These problems are solved and an advance is made over the prior art in accordance with Applicant's invention wherein individual telephone users or businesses which do not wish to absorb the cost of incoming calls are assigned a variable length number; in most cases, this is a number whose telephone key digits correspond to some meaningful word(s) such as a name, possibly augmented by additional numbers to distinguish from other users wishing to use the same name or a name which happens to correspond to the same telephone key digits. This variable length name is then translated into a POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) telephone number and that number is used by the public switched telephone network to route the call in conformance with the principles of the prior telephone art. Advantageously, any telephone user can be assigned any telephone number of any length which makes it easier to remember the assigned number.
In accordance with one feature of Applicant's invention, if the caller is served by a switch having intelligent network capabilities, the caller dials a brief prefix such as *88 before dialing the personalized number of the destination. If the caller is served by a switch which does not have intelligent network capabilities, the caller dials an access number such as 1-800-346-36263 (equals 1 800 FIND NAME) to route the call to a switch having intelligent network capabilities. The switch having intelligent network capabilities then receives the dialed personalized number and accesses a database (DB) to translate from the personalized number to the POTS number of the dialed destination. Advantageously, both types of switches can then serve customers who wish to dial a personalized number. A variety of systems can be employed by a 1-800-FIND NAME server to recognize the personalized number that includes dialed digits (DTMF (dual tone multi-frequency) or rotary), voice recognition, etc. In addition, the DB can be accessed using internet and the user can have a smart phone (or just do it in two steps) that makes the data query to get the POTS number from the personalized number and dials the POTS number thereafter.
In the Internet Protocol (IP) world, the caller can do the same as above or the service provider can set up their Domain Name Server (DNS) to resolve the number (e.g., FLOWERS@FINDNAME.ORG).
In accordance with another feature of Applicant's invention, the personalized numbers exist in parallel with the POTS numbers so that a customer can also dial the POTS number of a destination in order to reach that destination.
In accordance with another feature of Applicant's invention, there is a delimiter to indicate the end of the string of digits representing the personalized number. In Applicant's preferred embodiment, this end symbol is a # (“pound”) sign. Advantageously, the use of an end symbol avoids the necessity for having a timeout to detect the end of dialing.
Also shown is source telephone 2 served by switch 15 which has intelligent network capabilities. Source telephone 2 in this case dials an abbreviated directing code such as *88 followed by the destination name and # sign. Switch 15 uses the destination name to query database 20 and to receive from database 20 a response specifying the POTS telephone number of the destination telephone 3. Switch 15 then sends the call via public switched telephone network 17 to destination telephone 3.
If desired, an announcement machine 14 or 16 can be attached to switch 13 or 15, respectively, to announce to the caller that a connection is being requested which is a toll connection and that the caller will incur toll charges. The announcement machine can also present announcements relating to faulty destination name queries.
Block 230 is for the simple case in which one destination name corresponds to one destination number 231. In addition, entry 232 contains charge data such as an indication that this is a toll call or an indication that this is a toll free call. Either of these two indications can lead to an announcement to the caller to inform the caller of this special type of charge.
Block 240 contains a series of destination numbers 241, 243, . . . ,245 each of which corresponds to a different geographic location 241, 242, 244, . . . ,246. The location data may be a series of area codes or office codes or both, or it may be a geographic coordinate to be used in case the caller is a cellular station. The object is to connect the caller to the nearest appropriate destination such as the nearest Pizza Hut restaurant.
Block 250 shows a destination number 251 and screening data 252. Screening data can be data to block calls from specific calling numbers or to block calls from all but a series of such numbers.
Finally, block 260 contains a primary destination number 261 and an alternate destination number 262 to be used, for example, in case the station indicated by destination number 261 is busy; alternatively, both the station number indicated in 261 and the station number indicated in 262 can be simultaneously alerted using the principles of flexible alerting in which several stations are simultaneously alerted and the call is completed to the first one to answer.
The examples of blocks 230, 240, 250 and 260 are only some of the possible services that can be provided in response to a caller calling a destination name. In general, any service which can be triggered by a caller calling a conventional (i.e., area code, office code, 4 digit number) can be triggered using the principles of this invention.
The above description is of one preferred embodiment of Applicant's invention. Other embodiments will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the scope of the invention. The invention is limited only by the attached claims.
