Home office communication system and method

A method of operating a home office communication system comprising the steps of:

• (a) establishing a communication link between a home modem and an office modem;
• (b) selecting one of a plurality of communication options;
• (c) selecting a second of the plurality of communication options;
• (d) when the one of the plurality of communication options is a telephone conversation, establishing a voice channel over the communication link;
• (e) digitizing a user's voice to form a digitized voice signal;
• and
• (f) packetizing the digitized voice signal to form a plurality of voice packets, each of the plurality of voice packets including a speech tag.

A home office communication system comprising:

• a control and display system including a telephone directory, a speech recognition module and a speech synthesis module;
• a vocoder connected to the control and display system;
• a microphone connected to the vocoder;
• a speaker connected to the vocoder;
• a multiplexer connected to the vocoder and connected to the control and display system, the multiplexer multiplexing a voice signal from the vocoder and a data stream from the control and display system, the multiplexer attaching a speech tag to each of a plurality of voice packets forming the voice signal, the multiplexer demultiplexing an incoming signal;
• and
• a modem connected to the multiplexer and connected to a telephone line.

A method of operating a home office communication system, comprising the steps of:

• (a) establishing a communication link between a home modem and an office modem;
• (b) selecting one of a plurality of communication options;
• (c) selecting a second of the plurality of communication options;
• (d) when the one of the plurality of communication options is a telephone conversation, establishing a voice channel over the communication link;
• (e) digitizing a user's voice to form a digitized voice signal;
• (f) packetizing the digitized voice signal to form a plurality of voice packets, each of the plurality of voice packets including a speech tag;
• (g) when the second of the plurality of communication options is an email request, forming an email query packet;
• (h) determining if a speech packet is pending;
• (i) when the speech packet is not pending sending the email query packet;
• and
• (j) receiving an email response.