Importance

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Abstract

Presented is a telephone calling party announcement system which stores telephone numbers and associated voice messages provided by a user. When an incoming telephone call occurs, and a telephone number of a calling party matches a stored telephone number, an associated stored voice message is played back. Calling party information is provided by Caller ID information transmitted between a first and a second ring signal. If a stored telephone number matches the telephone number portion of the Caller ID information, a stored voice message associated with the telephone number is played back between (or in place of) subsequent ring signals. The stored voice message is typically the name of the calling party, and in this case the name of the calling party is announced between ring signals. A first embodiment includes a voice message unit which receives, stores, and plays back voice messages provided by the user. A caller ID decoder decodes the Caller ID information and provides the decoded Caller ID information to a control unit. The control unit compares the telephone number portion of the decoded Caller ID information to telephone numbers stored in a control memory unit. If a match is found, the control unit asserts a playback control signal which causes the voice message unit to play back an associated stored voice message. In a second embodiment, a digital signal processor (DSP) performs the many of the functions of the voice message unit and the caller ID decoder of the first embodiment.

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First Claim