Telephone access to overly popular services

Abstract

A method and apparatus for providing easy access to a service provider that provides service over a communications system. In accordance with the present invention, a caller that wishes to gains access to the service provider simply needs to make a single call to a so-called queuing system, and hang up. The queuing system obtains information regarding the caller such as the caller's name, address and phone number, makes a connection with the service provider, calls-back the caller when the connection is made, and connects the caller to the service provider through the connection. The caller is thereby connected to the service provider without having to spend a substantial amount of his/her free time making calls. This is particularly advantageous when the service provider is popular or oversubscribed (e.g. a service that provides Super Bowl tickets).

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.