Alarm notification system and method for a telephone switch

Abstract

An alarm notification system 100 and method for automatically reporting an alarm condition related to a telephonic switch 102 to a remote communications device, such as a display unit 104 or a paging unit 106, is provided. The system 100 may communicate with the display unit 104 and/or the paging unit 106 through a modem 115 and a network 114. Alternatively, a paging circuit 128 may provide cellular communications with the paging unit 106 and/or the display unit 104. An alarm sensing circuit 116 senses an alarm condition. Alarm conditions are defined and modified by an alarm setting circuit 118. After an alarm condition is sensed, an alarm notification circuit detects and logs various alarm information relating to the sensed alarm condition. The alarm notification circuit automatically transmits the alarm information to the remote communications device. The alarm notification circuit may comprise an alarm date circuit 120 for detecting a date on which the alarm condition occurs, an alarm time circuit 122 for detecting a time at which the alarm condition occurs, an alarm severity circuit 124 for assigning a severity classification to the alarm condition and an alarm description circuit 126 for indicating a type of the alarm condition.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.