JP2761418B2 - Toll collection cordless telephone - Google Patents

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a toll collection telephone for paying a call charge by money or card, and more particularly to a toll collection cordless telephone having a handset connected wirelessly.

[Prior Art] A pink telephone provided at a coffee shop or a store is the same as a red commissioned public telephone in the mechanism itself in which a user pays a telephone charge by directly inserting the telephone charge into a coin insertion slot of the telephone. However, in the case of a commissioned public telephone, the telephone installation company directly collects the telephone charge from the telephone, whereas in the case of the pink telephone, the business owner installing the pink telephone pays the telephone installation company as a subscriber usage fee.

On the other hand, pink telephones are generally placed near the checkout place near the doorway, but in recent years, in order to improve service for customers, this pink telephone has been It has been proposed to use a cordless telephone including a connected child device.
Therefore, the customer can make a call at his or her seat using the slave unit.

In such a toll collection cordless telephone,
A sub-unit stand also serving as a charger is disposed near the parent unit, and usually the sub-unit is mounted on the sub-unit stand. When the user of the pink telephone uses the parent device, the user picks up the handset of the parent device from the hook, inserts a coin into the coin insertion slot, performs a dial operation, and starts talking.
When the call is finished and the handset is put on the hook, the coins charged more than the call charge are discharged to the coin return slot as remaining coins.

In some cases, the child machine mounting table is formed integrally with the parent machine.

On the other hand, when using the slave unit, pick up the slave unit from the slave stand, insert a coin into the coin slot of the master unit, return to a position near the master unit or to your own seat, and dial the dial key of the slave unit. Key to start a call. When the call is over, the user presses a disconnect key provided near the dial key of the slave unit. Then, coins exceeding the call charge inserted into the coin insertion slot of the parent machine are discharged to the coin return slot as remaining coins.

During use of the child device, a child device use lamp is lit on the parent device.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, such a toll collection cordless telephone still has the following problems. That is,
When the customer makes a call using the slave unit at his / her own seat and presses the cut-off key to end the call, coins exceeding the call charge inserted into the coin slot of the base unit remain at the point when the cut-off key is pressed. It is ejected as coins to the coin return slot. Therefore, the customer collects the coins already returned to the coin return slot when bringing the child device and going to the installation location of the parent device. However, if the customer's seat is far away from the installation location of the base unit, it may take 30 seconds to 1 minute for the customer to reach the installation location of the base unit.

Therefore, it is quite conceivable that another customer will go to the installation location of the base unit in order to use the toll collection cordless telephone. If coins are returned to the return slot at that time, it is very unreasonable. Also, due to the misunderstanding of the user,
When the number of returned coins is small, if the next user is near the parent device when returning the child device, there is a concern that the next user may be unexpectedly charged.

The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and when the child device has been used, the remaining amount is returned when the child device is placed on the child device stand, so that the user can reliably use the remaining amount. It is an object of the present invention to provide a toll-collecting cordless telephone which can prevent troubles in returning money, and can improve the reliability of the entire device used by an unspecified number of people.

Means for Solving the Problems To solve the above problems, the present invention provides a dial mechanism attached to the outer surface of a telephone case, a dial signal generating circuit for generating a dial signal in response to a dial operation, a handset, and the handset. A main unit including a main unit communication unit including a communication circuit for making a telephone call using a telephone, and a base unit provided with a call charge collection unit that collects a call charge with inserted money or a card, and wirelessly connected to the base unit A remote call that includes a dial mechanism, a dial signal generation circuit, a call circuit, a speaker and a microphone attached to the outer surface of the slave unit housing, and enables a call according to a charge collected by a call charge collection unit of the base unit. And a slave unit having a unit, arranged at a position near the master unit and connected to the master unit by wire,
In a toll collection cordless telephone that has a sub-station that supplies charging power from the parent to the sub-unit while the sub-unit is mounted, it is installed on the sub-unit and detects that the sub-unit is mounted And a slave unit detecting means to be transmitted to the master unit, and provided in the master unit, from a call end time by the remote communication unit of the slave unit to a time when the placement of the slave unit is detected by the slave unit detection unit of the slave unit stand.
When the placement of the slave unit is detected by the holding unit that holds the money or card exceeding the call charge by the remote calling unit in the telephone case and the slave unit detection unit of the slave unit base, Or a return means for discharging the card to a money return port or a card return port.

[Operation] With the toll collection cordless telephone configured as described above, even if the customer makes a call using the child device at his or her seat away from the parent device, the off key is pressed when the call is completed. Even though, the money or card exceeding the call charge inserted into the parent machine remains inside. When the customer who has finished the call brings the child device to the place where the parent device is installed and places it on the child device stand, the remaining money or card is discharged to the return slot of the parent device.

Therefore, the user of the slave unit can reliably secure the remaining money or card.

Embodiment An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is an external view showing the entire charge collection type cordless telephone of the embodiment. It is assumed that the telephone of this embodiment is a pink telephone provided in a coffee shop or the like. As shown in the figure, this pink telephone has a base unit 1 connected to a telephone station via a central office line, a slave unit 2 connected to the base unit 1 via a wireless line, and a cable connected to the base unit 1. 3 and a slave unit mounting table 4 also serving as a charger.

A handset 5 is mounted on a hook base 6 on the upper surface of the telephone case of the base unit 1, and a dial key 7, a coin slot 8, and a handset in-use lamp 9 are provided on the front side. A coin return port 10 is formed at a lower position. Further, an antenna 11 for wireless communication is mounted behind the upper surface.

On the outer surface of the casing of the slave unit 2, there is a speaker
12, a microphone 13, an operation panel 14, and an antenna 15 for detecting a user's voice are mounted. On the operation panel 14,
As shown in FIG. 2, a call key 14 for starting a call is provided.
a, a dial key 14b for keying in a destination number, an off key 14c for forcibly terminating the call, a charge warning lamp 14d for displaying that the output voltage of the charging circuit has dropped, and the like are provided.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 3, a recess 16 into which the bottom surface 2a of the slave unit 2 on the microphone 13 side is inserted is formed in the slave unit base 4, as shown in FIGS. A pair of charging electrodes 17a, 17b connected to the charging circuit 17 is attached to the bottom surface 2a on the side of the slave unit 2, and further a pair of electrodes 18a, 18a,
18b is installed. Then, the concave portion 1 on the side of
6 has a charging plug 19 opposed to the charging electrodes 17a and 17b.
a, 19b, and an electrode plug 20 opposing the electrodes 18a, 18b
a, 20b are installed.

Accordingly, in a state where at the handset 2 to the handset table 4, the charging voltage V _B is supplied to the charging circuit 17 from the power supply circuit 37 of the main unit 1 via the cable 3. Also, the electrode plug 20
a and 20b are short-circuited through the electrodes 18a and 18b, so that the slave unit 2 is connected to the slave unit base 4 by the electrode plugs 20a and 20b and the electrodes 18a and 18b.
The slave unit detection means 21 for detecting that the slave unit is placed in the slave unit.

FIG. 4 is a schematic cross-sectional view showing a schematic configuration of a telephone charge storage unit formed in the base unit 1. As shown in FIG. The coin 22 inserted from the coin insertion slot 8 rolls along the accumulation track 23 and is discharged to the coin return slot 10 or stored in the safe 24. At the branch point to the safe 24, a storage lever 25 and a collection lever 26 are provided.
Is installed. Each of the levers 25 and 26 is driven by a solenoid. The accumulation lever 25 has a function of accumulating the coins 22 inserted from the coin insertion slot 8 in the accumulation track 23. When the solenoid is energized, it rotates in the direction of the arrow, and the coin return slot 10 of the coin 22 is turned on. To prevent it from falling. on the other hand,
The collection lever 26 has a function of storing the coins 22 accumulated in the accumulation track 23 by the accumulation lever 25 in the safe 24. Specifically, each time a charging signal is input from the outside, the solenoid is energized, the collection lever 26 rotates downward, and the coins 22 are stored in the safe 24 one by one. Base unit 1 and child unit 2
In the state where is not used, the inserted coin 22 falls to the coin return slot 10 as shown.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of the master unit 1. As shown in FIG.
One end of the pair of signal lines 27a, 27b is connected to the office line via each input terminal 28a, 28b, and the other end is a transceiver 30 or a dial pulse generating circuit 31, a dial key 7, a dial pulse generating circuit 31, via a signal switching circuit 29. It is connected to a main unit communication unit including a communication circuit 32 and a handset 5.

Further, the signal lines 27a and 27b detect a call and output a tone ringer 33b for generating a ring tone to the speaker 33a. Lever solenoid for collection that rotates for a short time
A charging signal receiving circuit 34b for energizing 34a is connected.

The signal switching circuit 29 performs a switching operation on the signal lines 27a and 27b in response to a switching signal from a switching control unit 35 including, for example, a microcomputer. The switching control unit 35 includes a hook switch 6a attached to the hook base 6 of the handset 5 and detecting a pick-up operation of the handset 5,
The above-mentioned slave unit detection switch 21 for detecting that the slave unit 2 is placed on the slave unit stand 4 and the storage lever solenoid 36 for rotating the storage lever 25 are connected.

Further, the power supply circuit 37 for supplying a charging voltage V _B to the electronic circuit to the drive voltage V _C and handset 2 is incorporated.

The slave unit 2 is configured, for example, as shown in FIG.
That is, the telephone circuit 38 to which the speaker 12, the microphone 13 and the off key 14c of the operation panel 14 are connected, and the dial key 14b
Is connected to the dial pulse generating circuit 39 to constitute a remote communication unit. This remote communication unit is wirelessly connected to the transceiver 30 of the base unit 1 via the transceiver 40. In addition, each electronic circuit receives a drive voltage from the charging circuit 17.
V _C is supplied.

Thus, the switching control unit 35 composed of the microcomputer of the master unit 1 monitors the on / off state change of the hook switch 6a and the on / off state change of the slave unit detection switch 21, and detects the state change. Then, the program is configured to control the operations of the signal switching circuit 29 and the storage lever 25 in accordance with the flow chart of FIG. 7 in response to this state change.

When the flow chart is started and the hook switch (FS) 6a changes to the off state in S (step) 1, the handset 5 of the master unit 1 is picked up, and the state of the slave unit flag is checked in S2. If the child device flag has been released to 0, the child device 2 is not currently used, and the parent device flag indicating that the parent device 1 is to be used is set to 1. Then, a switching signal is transmitted to the signal switching circuit 29, and the signal lines 27a and 27b are switched and connected to the main unit side communication unit. Thereafter, the storage lever solenoid 36 is energized to rotate the storage lever 25 in the direction of the arrow. Then, return to the beginning of the flowchart. In addition,
If the slave unit flag is set to 1 in S2, the current slave unit 2
Is in use, return to S1 without doing anything.

When the hook switch 6a changes to the ON state in S3, the call on the master unit 1 ends and the handset 5 is placed, so that the master unit flag is reset to 0. Then, the power supply to the storage lever solenoid 36 is stopped, and the storage lever 25 is returned to the original position.

Next, when the slave unit detection switch 21 changes to the off state in S4, the slave unit 2 has been picked up from the slave unit stand 4, and it is confirmed in S5 that the master unit flag has been released to 0. At the same time as setting the child device flag to 1, the child device busy lamp 9 is turned on. Then, a switching signal is transmitted to the signal switching circuit 29 to switch and connect the signal lines 27a and 27b to the slave unit, that is, the transceiver 30 side. Next, the storage lever solenoid 36 is energized to rotate the storage lever 25 in the direction of the arrow. In addition,
If the parent device flag is set to 1 in S5, the current parent device 1
Is in use, return to S1 without doing anything.

Further, when the handset detection switch 21 changes in the ON state in S6, the call by the handset 2 is terminated and the handset 2 is placed on the handset base 4, so that the handset flag is released to 0 and the handset is reset. The machine-in-use lamp 9 is turned off. Further, the power supply to the storage lever solenoid 36 is stopped, and the storage lever 25 is returned to the original position.

Next, the usage and operation of the pink telephone as the charge collecting cordless telephone configured as described above will be described.

First, in the case of talking using the master unit 1, after confirming that the slave unit 2 is placed on the slave stand 4, when the handset 5 is picked up, the signal switching circuit 29 is switched to the main unit talk unit side. At the same time, the storage lever 25 of the storage track 23 rotates in the direction of the arrow. Then, after the user inserts the coin 22 into the coin slot 8, the dial key 7 is used to key in the number of the call destination. A call line is formed with the other party, and when a call is started, a billing signal is input every time a call time determined according to the call distance elapses, and the collection lever 26 pivots downward for a short time. The coins 22 stored in the storage track 23 are sequentially stored in the safe 24 by the storage lever 25.

Then, when the call is over and the handset 5 is placed,
The storage lever 25 returns. Therefore, the remaining coins exceeding the call charges stored in the storage orbit 23 are returned to the coin return slot 10
To fall. Thus, the user only has to collect the remaining coins.

On the other hand, when making a call using the slave unit 2, the slave unit 2 is picked up from the slave stand 4. Then, the signal switching circuit 29 of the master unit 1 switches to the remote communication unit side of the slave unit 2. In addition, the slave unit in-use lamp 9 is turned on. Further, the storage lever 25 of the storage track 23 rotates in the direction of the arrow. Then, after the user inserts the coin 22 substantially corresponding to the call charge into the coin insertion slot 8,
Bringing the handset 2, for example, returning to his / her own seat, pressing the call key 14 a of the operation panel 14, and then key-inputting the number of the call destination with the dial key 14 b. When a call line is formed with the other party and the call is started, the call charges are sequentially stored in the safe 24 in the same procedure as described above.

When the call is terminated and the off key 14c is pressed, the call line is cut off, and the collection of the call charge by the call charge collection unit is stopped. At this time, since the accumulation lever 25 has been rotated in the direction of the arrow, the remaining coins 22 remain on the accumulation trajectory 23. Then, when the caller brings the handset 2 to the position of the base unit 1 and places it on the handset stand 4, the in-use lamp 9 turns off and the storage lever 25 returns to its original position. Therefore, the remaining coins exceeding the call charges accumulated in the accumulation orbit 23 fall to the coin return slot 10. Thus, the user of the handset 2 may collect the remaining coins.

In this way, even if the handset 2 is used in its own seat away from the master unit 1 and the off key 14c is pressed in its own seat, the handset 2 is moved to the handset base 4 near the master unit 1. , The remaining coins 22 are not returned to the coin return slot 10. Therefore, between the time when the user of the handset 2 ends the call and the time when the user arrives at the place where the base unit 1 is installed, even if another customer goes to the place where the base unit 1 is used to use this pink telephone. Even so, no remaining coins are returned in the coin return slot 10 at that time. Therefore, the user of the slave unit 2 can reliably collect the remaining coins. Even if the number of returned coins is small due to the misunderstanding of the user of the child device 2, the next user near the parent device 1 will not be suspiciously suspected.

Although the pink telephone using coins arranged in a coffee shop or a store has been described in the embodiment, the present invention is not limited to the pink telephone.

Also, a prepaid card may be used instead of a coin. Further, the coin and the prepaid card may be used simultaneously. In this case, a card insertion slot is provided in addition to the coin insertion slot, and a card reader / writer is incorporated therein. The card is returned from the card return when the child device is placed on the child device stand.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, in the toll collection cordless telephone according to the present invention, the call charge is exceeded from the end time of the call by the remote call unit of the slave to the time when the slave is mounted on the slave stand. Money or a card is held in the telephone case. Then, when the slave unit is placed on the slave stand,
The money or card is discharged to a money return or card return. Therefore, the balance can be reliably returned to the user,
Troubles in returning money can be prevented beforehand, and the reliability as a telephone used by an unspecified number of people can be greatly improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

1 shows a toll collection cordless telephone according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1 is an external view showing the entirety, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an operation panel of a child device, and FIG. 3 is a child device. FIG. 4 is a schematic cross-sectional view showing a connection state between the mobile phone and the base station, FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view showing the configuration of a call charge collection unit in the mobile phone, FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing the schematic configuration of the mobile phone, and FIG. The figure is a block diagram showing the schematic configuration of the slave unit, and FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the operation. 1 ... master unit, 2 ... slave unit, 4 ... slave unit stand, 5 ... handset, 6a ... hook switch, 7, 14b ... dial keys, 8 ... coin slot, 10 ... coin return Mouth, 11,15 ……
Antenna, 21 ... Slave unit detection switch, 22 ... Coin, 23 ...
... storage track, 25 ... storage lever, 29 ... signal switching circuit, 30, 40 ... transceiver, 35 ... switching control unit.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (58) Field surveyed (Int. Cl. ⁶ , DB name) H04M 1 / 00,1 / 24,1 / 58-1/62 H04M 1/66-1/78 H04M 17 / 00-17/02

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] A telephone conversation is performed using a dial mechanism (7) mounted on the outer surface of a telephone case, a dial signal generating circuit (31) for generating a dial signal in response to a dial operation, a handset (5), and the handset. And a call charge collecting unit (34) for collecting a call charge by inserted money or a card.
a, 34b), a dial mechanism (14b) wirelessly connected to the master, and mounted on the outer surface of the slave unit housing, a dial signal generation circuit (39), and a call circuit (3) a handset (2) including a speaker (12) and a microphone (13), and having a remote call unit that enables a call according to a charge collected by a call charge collection unit of the master unit; A sub-station (4) which is arranged in the vicinity of the main unit, is connected to the main unit by wire, and supplies charging power from the main unit to the sub-unit while the sub-unit is mounted; A cordless telephone having a charge collecting function, comprising: The slave unit is provided from a call end time by the remote talk unit of the slave unit. A holding unit (25, 36) for holding money or a card exceeding a call charge by the remote calling unit in the telephone housing until the time when the placement of the slave unit is detected by the slave unit detecting unit; Return means (3) for discharging the money or card to a money return slot or a card return slot when the placement of the slave unit is detected by the slave unit detection means of the slave stand.
5) A toll-type cordless telephone with and.