Wireless prepaid telephone system with dispensable instruments

A wireless, keyless telephone instrument for prepaid and discardable use with an approving central station capable of bridging to a public switched telephone network for outgoing communication by the wireless telephone instrument with remote stations, said wireless telephone instrument consisting of:

• a housing defining an interior space;
• an earphone fixed to the housing to provide represented vocal sounds from audio signals;
• a microphone structure fixed to the housing to provide representative audio signals from vocal sounds;
• a wireless transceiver fixed to the housing and coupled to the earphone, and the microphone to communication with the central station and through the public switched telephone network to select remote stations;
• a memory fixed to the housing, storing instrument data on the wireless telephone instrument;
• an activation switch fixed to the housing;
• and
• a control unit fixed to the housing and coupled whereby, activation of the activation switch to place an outgoing call transfers instrument data on the wireless telephone instrument from the memory to the wireless transceiver for transmission to the central station, and then to receive prompting signals for the earphone to prompt for spoken numbers to the microphone for a select remote station to attain a connection through the public switched telephone network to the select remote station.

A process for wireless telephonic communication to accomplish an interface between wireless, keyless telephone instruments and a central station to establish communication with remote telephone terminals through a public switched telephone network, comprising the steps of:

• providing a plurality of keyless and wireless, discardable instruments having prepaid usage values, capable of transmitting an identification signal, on activation, to the central station indicating a desire to communicate with a desired remote telephone terminal;
• receiving the identification signal at the central station from an active keyless and wireless, discardable telephone instrument to test for a proper call;
• upon a successful test for a proper call;
• actuating the wireless telephone instrument to prompt for spoken numbers indicating a telephone calling number for a desired remote telephone terminal;
• transmitting signals representative of the spoken numbers from the active keyless and wireless, discardable telephone instrument to the central station;
• applying the signals representative of the spoken numbers from the wireless telephone instrument as dial-up signal representations to the public switched telephone network to attain a connection with the desired remote telephone terminal;
• and
• bridging the wireless telephone instrument to the desired remote telephone terminal.

A wireless, keyless telephone instrument for prepaid and discardable use with an approving central station capable of bridging to a public switched telephone network for outgoing call communication by the wireless, keyless telephone instrument with remote stations, said wireless, keyless telephone instrument comprising:

• a housing defining an interior space;
• an earphone fixed to the housing to provide represented vocal sounds from audio signals;
• a microphone structure fixed to the housing to provide representative audio signals from vocal sounds;
• a wireless transceiver fixed to the housing and coupled to the earphone and the microphone, communicating with the central station and through the public switched telephone network, to select remote stations for outgoing calls;
• a voice-recognition structure to convert voice signals representative of spoken numbers to dial-up signals;
• and
• a control unit for sequencing the operation of the wireless transceiver to selectively transmit either representative voice audio signals or numerical dial-up signals to attain communication with a remote station.

A wireless, keyless telephone instrument for prepaid and discardable use with an approving central station capable of bridging to a public switched telephone network for communication by the wireless, keyless telephone instrument with remote stations, said wireless, keyless telephone instrument consisting of:

• a housing defining an interior space;
• an earphone fixed to the housing to provide represented vocal sounds from audio signals;
• a microphone structure fixed to the housing to provide representative audio signals from vocal sounds;
• a wireless transceiver fixed to the housing and coupled to the earphone and the microphone, communicating with the central station and through the public switched telephone network, to select remote stations;
• a voice-recognition structure to convert voice signals representative of spoken numbers to dial-up signals;
• and
• a control unit including a phase register to indicate a plurality of operating phases, including voice conversation communication and numerical signal communication.