Importance

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Abstract

A network based voice mail system without losing any of the advantages of traditional answering machines includes a small device, which looks like an answering machine and costs about the same, and three-way calling service. The small device (called a Remote Answering Device) looks just like an ordinary answering machine. Answered by a human, the Remote Answering Device will pick up after a preselected number of rings and play a prerecorded greeting that is stored locally and then prompt the caller to wait for the beep. The Remote Answering Device then uses three-way calling service to conference the user's voice mail number into the call, by sending a hook flash signal and speed dialing the user's voice mail number. When a conference call is established it plays the beep and then plays the message which is. If an extension is picked up, the Remote Answering Device drops the conference call by sending another hook flash signal and hangs up. Since the Remote Answering Device answered all calls it knows how many messages have been left and can indicate this number on its display. The Remote Answering Device will automatically call up the user's voice mail box and start playing the messages. If a call is received by the network based voice mail system that did not first pass through the Remote Answering Device, the network based voice mail system sends a page to the Remote Answering Device that identifies the correct message count in the queue. The Remote Answering Device includes a paging receiver that receives the message and sends the correct count to a processor that updates the message count indicator.

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First Claim