Device independent text captioned telephone service

A method for maintaining a captioning service for an assisted user (AU) during a voice communication session between the AU and a hearing user HU wherein the HU uses an HU device to communicate via voice and the AU uses an AU device linked to a computer network to receive and present captions corresponding to an HU voice signal via a display screen, the AU device associated with a computer network address, and the HU device associated with an HU calling number, the method for use with a relay that transcribes voice signal to text, the method comprising the steps of, at the relay:

• connecting to the AU device via the computer network address, the AU device is a first AU device, the AU also using a second AU device that is associated with an AU calling number;
• receiving the AU calling number from the first AU device;
• receiving the HU calling number from the first AU device;
• assign a temporary relay calling number to the first AU device;
• store the AU calling number with the temporary relay calling number and with the computer network address associated with the first AU device;
• and
• use the HU calling number to establish a first communication link with an HU and present the temporary relay calling number to the HU device.

A method for maintaining a captioning service for an assisted user (AU) during a voice communication session between the AU and a hearing user HU wherein the HU uses an HU device to communicate via voice and the AU uses an AU device linked to a computer network to receive and present captions corresponding to an HU voice signal via a display screen, the AU device associated with a computer network address, and the HU device associated with an HU calling number, the method for use with a relay that transcribes voice signal to text, the method comprising the steps of, at the relay:

• connecting to the AU device via the computer network address, the AU device is a first AU device, the AU also using a second AU device that is associated with an AU calling number;
• receiving the AU calling number from the first AU device;
• receiving the HU calling number from the AU device;
• (i) assign a temporary relay calling number to the AU device;
• (ii) store the AU calling number with the temporary relay calling number and with the computer network address associated with the first AU device;
• (iii) use the HU calling number to establish a first communication link with an HU device and present the temporary relay calling number to the HU device;
• (iv) upon termination of the first communication link:
• (a) monitoring for a call using the temporary relay calling number;
• (b) upon receiving a call using the temporary relay calling number, use the temporary calling number to identify the network address of the first AU device;
• and
• (c) use the network address of the first AU device to re-establish communication with the first AU device.