Telephone with user recorded ringing signal

A telephone station set comprising:

• a speakerphone having a loudspeaker and a microphone, said microphone being operable to receive acoustic signals representative of a user-selected alerting signal while the station is in an on-hook condition and to generate audio signals corresponding thereto;
• a signal storage unit that is responsive to said microphone and that stores a representation of said alerting signal, said signal storage unit being further operable to store a representation of an outgoing message for delivery to a calling party;
• and
• an audible reproduction system operatively associated with said signal storage unit for causing said loudspeaker to audibly reproduce an acoustic signal representative of said user-selected alerting signal in response to detection of an incoming call without communicating the alerting signal to the calling party.

A method for operating a telephone station set to provide customized, user-selected alerting signals, said station set comprising a speakerphone having a loudspeaker and microphone, comprising the steps of:

• converting, with the microphone, acoustic signals corresponding to selected alerting signals into audio signals;
• operating, in a storing step, a signal processing system to store representations of said audio signals and a representation of an outgoing message for delivery to a calling party;
• audibly reproducing, with the speakerphone, said selected alerting signals in response to detection of an incoming call;
• and
• operating, in an echo-cancellation step, the signal processing system to perform echo cancellation between a transmit and receive path of the telephone set.

A telecommunications instrument for establishing communication between a calling party and a called party comprising:

• a loudspeaker;
• a microphone for receiving acoustic signals representative of plural alerting signals selected by the called party;
• means for detecting a signal containing automatic number identification information and representative of an incoming call;
• and
• a signal processing system operatively associated with said microphone and said loudspeaker for storing representations of said plural user selected alerting signals, said signal processing system being responsive to said detecting means to cause said loudspeaker to audibly reproduce a particular one of said user selected alerting signals associated with said automatic number identification information of said calling party, said loudspeaker audibly reproducing said user-selected alerting signal without communicating the alerting signal to the calling party and to thereby indicate the incoming call, and said signal processing system being further operative to store an outgoing message and to supply signals representative of the outgoing message to the calling party.