Method and system for playing packetized announcements to telephone network end office switching systems from a centralized digital recorded announcement unit
AssigneeAt&T Knowledge Ventures, L.P.
InventorsRobert Lowmaster, Sidney L. Underwood
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A centralized recorded announcement unit shared by multiple end offices on a public switched telephone network stores announcements in digital files. When a call is received at a switch and an announcement is required, the announcement is played to the caller by an announcement device if the particular announcement file is stored locally. If the announcement is not stored locally, a request is sent to the centralized recorded announcement unit to retrieve the announcement file and play the announcement to the caller. Both the request and the announcement file are sent via a packed-switched network.
Claims23
A method of providing at least one recorded announcement at an end office switch in a public switched telephone network, the method comprising:
- receiving a call from a caller at the switch;
- determining which of a plurality of announcements to play to the caller, the determination being made at the switch;
- determining whether the announcement that is determined to be played to the caller is stored in a memory of an announcement device;
- sending a request from the announcement device to a centralized recorded announcement unit for the determined announcement in response to a determination that the determined announcement is not stored in the memory of the announcement device;
- receiving the determined announcement from the recorded announcement unit via a packet network;
- and
- playing the determined announcement to the caller.
A method of providing at least one announcement file from a centralized recorded announcement unit, to be played to a caller, at an end office switch in a public switched telephone network, the method comprising:
- storing a plurality of announcement files on the recorded announcement unit, each announcement file comprising a digitally recorded announcement;
- receiving a request from an announcement device to send the at least one announcement file to the announcement device in response to a determination that the at least one announcement file is not stored in a memory of the announcement device, the determination of which of the plurality of announcement files stored on the recorded announcement unit to be played to the caller having been made at the end office switch, the request being received via a packet network;
- and
- sending the at least one announcement file to the announcement device via the packet network.
A centralized recorded announcement system for playing announcements to a caller in a public switched telephone network, the system comprising:
- a centralized recorded announcement unit configured to store recorded announcements, each announcement being digitally stored in a file;
- a plurality of end offices connected to the recorded announcement unit, each of the plurality of end offices being configured to determine the announcements to play to the caller;
- and
- an announcement device at each of the plurality of end offices configured to receive announcement files comprising digitally recorded announcements over a packet network and configured to play at least one announcement to the caller, each of the announcement devices having a memory,
- wherein the recorded announcement unit sends an announcement file to at least one of the announcement devices in response to a request from the at least one of the announcement devices when a determination is made that an announcement to be played to the caller is not stored in the memory of the announcement device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.