Telecommunications network having resident ability to pre-book scheduled call back services

A telecommunications network comprising:

• (a) a plurality of switches connected to provide switched telecommunications services between any two or more nodes of the network, some of said nodes comprising telephone lines to customer premises;
• (b) switch control means associated with each of said switches and responsive to signaling from a first of said telephone lines to effect set up of a communication path to at least one other of said telephone lines;
• and
• (c) network control means responsive to further signaling from one of the communicating telephone lines during an established call to capture and store line identity data identifying each of said first and said at least one other of said telephone lines,
• said network control means further including
• c(i) means to provide voice prompts to said one of the communicating telephone lines;
• c(ii) means to derive from signaling from said communicating telephone line time data defining a call-back time and to associate said time data with said line identity data;
• c(iii) means responsive to network clock data at said defined call-back time to cause set up of a communications path to the one of said telephone lines which requested re-establishment and to cause a calling signal to be applied thereto;
• and
• c(iv) means responsive to an answer signal from said one of said telephone lines to re-establish said communications path between said first and said at least one other of said telephone lines.