Importance

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Abstract

Allowing a calling party to enter a message that is transmitted on a destination telephone link during silent intervals of a ringing signal by a switching office. In a first embodiment, the destination telephone link is equipped with the feature of allowing receipt of calling party specified data messages. The switching office automatically accepts information for a data message as dialed digits from the calling party. In a second embodiment, the switching office designates that an originating telephone link can transmit information for a data message. The switching office is responsive to the transmitted information to form a data message and to transmit this data message on a destination telephone link during the silent intervals of the ringing cycles. In a third embodiment, in response to a calling party placing a call to a special telephone number, the switching office requests that the calling party enter a destination telephone number and information for a data message. In another implementation of the third embodiment, the switching office transfers the call to an adjunct system that receives the destination telephone number and information for a data message. Then, the adjunct system requests that the switching office set up a call between the calling party and an identified telephone link and transmit the data message on the identified telephone link during the silent intervals of the ringing cycles. In a fourth embodiment, the switching office is responsive to called party information and data message information in a setup message received from an ISDN telephone link to establish a call between the ISDN telephone link and a telephone link identified by the called party information. Further, the switching office is responsive to the data message information to form a data message and to transmit the data message on the identified telephone link during the silent intervals of the ringing cycles.

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First Claim