Importance

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Abstract

A call originating in the Internet network (102) is converted by a gateway (104) into a telephone call and is completed to a call center (106) as a conventional inbound call including caller identification. An Internet user who has accessed a World Wide Web (WWW) home page (114) of a call center customer indicates a desire to speak to a call center agent by activating a 'call' virtual button (115) of the home page by means of the WWW browser (101) of the user's Internet phone (99)-equipped client (100). The WWW server (103) of the home page responds by sending an executable applet (117) and the call center's telephone number (116) to the client (100). The client executes the applet to obtain the user's telephone number from the user, to establish an Internet connection between the Internet phone (99) and the gateway, and to provide the user's and call center's telephone numbers to the gateway. The gateway uses the phone numbers to establish a call to the call center through the telephone network (105). It provides the user's telephone number to the call center as the calling telephone number (119) by including it in a field (e.g., ANI) of the ISDN call SETUP message (118). The gateway also interfaces the Internet connection with the telephone call. The call center uses the calling number to effect a screen pop at the agent position (109-110) of the agent assigned to handle the call.

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First Claim