Time and charges information delivery for operator assistance telecommunication calls

Apparatus for sending call data from a switching system to a telecommunications station, comprising:

• a switching network, connectable to the station;
• and
• control means, operable under the control of a switching system program process, for controlling a:
• formation of a call message at the switching system, comprising time and charges data associated with the call after a termination of the call;
• and a
• transmission of the message through the network to the station for controlling a display of the time and charges data at the station and a rejection of subsequent call setup operations between the network and the station.

Apparatus for sending call data from a switching system to a telecommunications station, comprising:

• an integrated services digital network (ISDN), connectable to the station via a basic rate interface (BRI), and equipped to handle CCITT (International Consultative Committee for Telephone and Telegraph) standard layer 3 (Q.931) standard call control messages defined for message associated user-to-user information (MA-UUI);
• and
• control means, operable under the control of a switching system program process, for controlling a:
• formation of a Q.931 SETUP message at the switching system, comprising a user-to-user information element (UUIE) containing time and charges data associated with a call from the station after a termination of the call;
• and a
• transmission of the message through the network over an ISDN D-channel of the BRI to the station for controlling a display of the time and charges data at the station and for rejecting subsequent call setup operations between the network and the station over an ISDN B-channel of the BRI.

A method of sending call data from a switching system to an intelligent telecommunications station, wherein the station and the system are connected via an integrated services digital network (ISDN) basic rate interface (BRI), and wherein the station and the system communicate with each other using CCITT (International Consultative Committee for Telephone and Telegraph) standard Layer 3 (Q.931) call control messages defined for message associated user-to-user information (MA-UUI) to send user-to-user information elements (UUIEs), comprising the steps of:

• responsive to origination of an outgoing call at the station, generating a unique station identifier, wherein the identifier uniquely associates the outgoing call with the station;
• forming a UUIE comprising the identifier;
• placing the UUIE in a Q.931 SETUP message;
• sending the message to the system over an ISDN D-channel;
• responsive to termination of the call, the system forming a second UUIE, comprising the identifier and data associated with the call;
• placing the second UUIE in a second Q.931 SETUP message;
• sending the second message to the station over an ISDN D-channel;
• responsive to receipt of the second message by the station, verifying that the identifier in the second UUIE matches the identifier generated at the station;
• and
• responsive to a successful verification, rejecting a call setup request in the SETUP message to establish an ISDN B-channel connection and displaying the call data at the station.