Importance

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Abstract

This invention relates to apparatus and method in conjunction with a service wherein a called caller identification (caller ID) customer is provided a promotional message such as 'We Are Talking Chevrolet', rather than a conventional privacy message such as 'anonymous caller', during a silent interval between intermittent ringing signals or after a call waiting (CW) tone when a calling party or a local switching office of the calling party has invoked a privacy option to prevent the delivery of the calling party's directory telephone number with or without a corresponding name (DN) to customer premises equipment (CPE) of the caller ID customer. In accordance with this invention, when the calling party's DN is received at a local switching office (LSO) of the caller ID customer flagged as 'private' indicating that the DN may not be disclosed to the caller ID customer, the LSO sends the intermittent ringing signals or the CW tone to the caller ID customer. The LSO then accesses its associate data-base and selects the promotional message from a plurality of promotional messages stored in the database and transmits the promotional message selected from the database to the CPE of the caller ID customer during the silent interval. The CPE receives and displays to the caller ID customer the promotional message from the LSO during the silent interval and subsequently stores the received promotional message in an associate memory for later retrieval and display.

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First Claim