Importance

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Abstract

An improvement in the transparency of personal telecommunications over the prior art is achieved by automatically placing a return call from a personal communications unit of a called individual in response to a call from a caller and alerting the called individual to the existence of the call placed to his personal number only upon an indication that the call from the calling telephone remains in progress. In one embodiment of the invention, the called individual associates his personal communications unit with a telephone channel, before his reception of any calls. Should a caller make a call to the called individual's personal calling number, the telephone network causes the transmission of an actuation signal. In response to the actuation signal, the personal communications unit places a call to a predetermined number over a switched telephone network using the aforementioned associated telephone channel. As long as the telephone network determines that the caller's telephone call continues to be in progress, it sends an 'in progress' signal over the telephone channel to the personal communications unit. During continued reception of the in-progress signal, the personal communications unit causes the generation of an alerting indication. A going off-hook on the telephone channel by a telephone during alerting results in completion of the caller's telephone call to the seizing telephone. To this end, the telephone network stops sending the in progress signal and bridges the caller's call to the return call placed by the personal communications unit.

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First Claim