JP2002094643A - Telecommunication terminal to automatically select low toll charge telephone company - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a telecommunication terminal of a structure that a low toll charge telephone company decision table is lessened by utilizing telephone services cheaper than those registered in a priority connection in a wide geographical partition and a distance partition and even though the memory capacity of low toll charge telephone companies is very little, the low toll charge telephone companies can be automatically selected. SOLUTION: Telephone services cheaper than telephone services being registered in a priority connection in a wide geographical partition and a distance partition are selected, the access codes of the selected cheaper telephone services are previously stored. When a user calls out, the called telephone number dialed by the user is analyzed and the access code to respond to the called telephone number is automatically added to the called telephone number.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a telecommunications terminal (telephone, facsimile machine, portable telephone, button telephone, PBX, etc.) for automatically selecting a telephone company having a low telephone charge based on a destination telephone number. Etc.). More specifically, the present invention relates to a telecommunications terminal that realizes a function of automatically selecting a telephone company with a low telephone charge at a minimum cost by minimizing required memory.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventional LCR (Least Cost)
The telephone rate determination method used in the Routing telephone price automatic selection apparatus is based on ground information (M in Japan).
Information on which telephone company is the cheapest is stored in advance corresponding to A identification information, NPA-NXX in the United States (area code and local exchange number), and country code for international calls.

[0003] There are the following two methods of holding information on which telephone company is the cheapest. One method is to search for unit charges and unit times for each location, and calculate call charges for multiple telephone companies using information such as date, day of the week, time zone, and estimated call duration. • Compare and determine the cheapest telephone company. One method is to calculate and compare the charges of each telephone company in advance using information such as date, day of the week, time zone, prediction of call length, and store only the judgment result that determined the cheapest telephone company. Every
Find the cheapest phone company.

[0004] Both of the above two methods have the following problems. The size of the table for storing in advance all the ground information that may make a call becomes very large. The MA identification information in Japan exceeds 1,000 types, and even if compression is applied for each distance step, it is one to several tens.
The size is about 00 types. US NPA-NXX
(Area code and local exchange number) exceeds 100,000 types, and even if compression is applied for each distance step, the size becomes several thousand types. The number of country codes exceeds several hundred and cannot be compressed. In order to cover all of the ground information, the number of entries in the table is tens to thousands, and the size of the table is from thousands to tens of thousands of bytes.

In order to incorporate a telephone charge determination function into a terminal such as a low-priced telephone, it is necessary to previously store a table used for determination. However, in order to store information of several thousand bytes to several tens of thousands bytes, Requires memory. The cost of a memory that can store thousands to tens of thousands of bytes is a significant cost relative to the price of a low cost telephone. If the cost is high, the price of the phone must be raised, but if the price increases, it is easy to expect that the sales will decrease.

In order to incorporate a telephone charge determination function without increasing the price of the telephone, the required amount of memory must be minimized. If the telephone charge determining function can be built in by using a surplus portion of the memory originally built in the telephone, no additional cost is required.

In order to minimize the required amount of memory, the most numerous ground information must be minimized. In order to reduce the size of the table by limiting the ground information to only ground information frequently used by the user, Japanese Patent Application No. 11-250570 previously stores only ground information frequently used by the user. However, a low-cost telephone company determination table that does not store other ground information is used. The low-priced telephone company determination table of Japanese Patent Application No. 11-250570 was able to realize the low-priced telephone company determination table with a much smaller memory amount than the conventional method.

[0008] However, in a less expensive telecommunications terminal,
Further, it is required to reduce the required amount of memory.

[0009]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention uses a telephone service that is cheaper than a telephone service registered with priority connection in a wide geographical section or a distance section.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a telecommunication terminal capable of automatically selecting a low-priced telephone company even if the low-priced telephone company determination table is made small and the amount of memory is very small.

[0010]

In order to achieve the above object, in a telecommunications terminal for automatically selecting a low-priced telephone company according to the present invention, a preferential connection is registered in a wide geographical section and a distance section. A telephone service that is cheaper than the telephone service is selected, its access code is stored in advance, the telephone number dialed by the user at the time of calling is analyzed, and an access code according to that is automatically added.

[0011] Assume that the charge of the telephone service currently used by the user with the priority connection registration is A. For A, if in Japan, the call fee per minute changes according to the geographical division (whether it is within LATA, outside LATA, inside the state, or outside the state) and the distance. If the telephone service presents a charge B lower than the charge A in all the divisions and distance stages, it is possible to select the telephone service of the charge B for all domestic calls without obtaining the geographic division and distance. And a low-priced telephone company determination table for automatically selecting a low-priced telephone company.

In general, the call fee often changes depending on the time zone of the call and the day of the week in addition to the geographical division and the distance division. Assume that fee A ranges from 1 minute 25 cents to 35 cents depending on geographic, distance and time segments. The charge B is also from 5 cents per minute to 10 cents.
Suppose you have cents. In this case, since the minimum charge of charge A of 25 cents per minute is higher than the maximum charge of charge B of 10 cents per minute, charge B is always reduced in any category. If a telephone service having such a charge B is selected, it is not necessary to have a geographical section, a distance section, and a time section in the table, and the size of the low-priced telephone company table is greatly reduced.

[0013] Many emerging telephone companies also offer out-of-state calls at a flat rate. It is assumed that the out-of-state call charge A of the telephone service used by a user with the priority connection registration is from 1 minute 25 cents to 35 cents depending on the distance division and the time division. It is also assumed that the out-of-state calling charge B of the emerging telephone company is uniformly 10 cents per minute. in this case,
Call charge B is always lower than call charge A. Choosing a telephone service with such a charge B,
There is no need to have distance and time segments in the table,
The size of the low telephone company table will be significantly reduced.

[0014]

An embodiment will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram for explaining an embodiment of a telecommunications terminal according to the present invention. 1 is a telecommunication terminal, 2 is a telephone line, 3 is a dial input unit, 4 is a central control unit, 5 is an access code storage unit, 6 is a dial storage unit, and 7 is a dial output unit. FIG. 1 shows only the configuration of a portion directly related to the present application. 2 to 9 show an embodiment of the access code table of the telecommunications terminal according to the present invention.

A telecommunications terminal for automatically dialing an access code for an Internet telephone service according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 1, 2 and 3. When the user performs an off-hook operation, the telecommunication terminal 1
The central control unit 4 detects off-hook and outputs an off-hook signal to the telephone network exchange. When detecting the off-hook signal, the telephone network exchange sends a dial tone to the telecommunications terminal 1. The user confirms the dial tone and inputs a dial to the dial input unit 3. The central control unit 4 detects a dial input by the user to the dial input unit 3 and stores the dial in the dial storage unit 6. Central control unit 4
Indicates that the dial stored in the dial storage unit 6 is an international call,
If the call is an out-of-state call, an out-of-state LATA call, or an in-state LATA call, the access code corresponding to the call is read from the dial storage unit 6 and dialed out to the telephone line 2 via the dial output unit 7. . The access code is stored as in the example of FIGS. FIG. 2 shows an example in which a seven-digit code is used as an access code. FIG. 3 shows an example in which a combination of a free call number or a local telephone number, a pause time, an identification number indicating a user, and the like is used as an access code. The dial input by the user to the dial input unit 3 until the output of the access code is completed is detected by the central control unit 4 and additionally stored in the dial storage unit 6. When the output of the access code is completed, the central control unit 4 reads out the dial from the dial storage unit 6 and outputs the dial to the telephone line 2 via the dial output unit 7. The dial number continuously dialed by the user is dialed out from the dial output unit 7 to the telephone line 2.

A telecommunications terminal for automatically dialing an access code for an Internet telephone service according to a second aspect will be described with reference to FIGS. 1, 4 and 5. When the user performs an off-hook operation, the telecommunication terminal 1
The central control unit 4 detects off-hook and outputs an off-hook signal to the telephone network exchange. When detecting the off-hook signal, the telephone network exchange sends a dial tone to the telecommunications terminal 1. The user confirms the dial tone and inputs a dial to the dial input unit 3. The central control unit 4 detects a dial input by the user to the dial input unit 3 and stores the dial in the dial storage unit 6. Central control unit 4
Indicates that the dial stored in the dial storage unit 6 is an international call,
If the call is a domestic long-distance call, the access code corresponding to the call is read out from the dial storage unit 6 and dialed out to the telephone line 2 via the dial output unit 7. The access code is stored as in the example of FIGS. FIG. 4 shows an example in which a seven-digit code is used as an access code. FIG. 5 shows an example in which a combination of a free call number or a local telephone number, a pause time, an identification number indicating a user, and the like is used as an access code. The dial input by the user to the dial input unit 3 until the output of the access code is completed is detected by the central control unit 4 and additionally stored in the dial storage unit 6. When the output of the access code is completed, the central control unit 4 reads out the dial from the dial storage unit 6 and outputs the dial to the telephone line 2 via the dial output unit 7. The dial number continuously dialed by the user is dialed out from the dial output unit 7 to the telephone line 2.

A telecommunications terminal for automatically dialing an access code for an Internet telephone service according to claim 3 will be described with reference to FIGS. 1, 6, and 7. FIG. When the user performs an off-hook operation, the telecommunication terminal 1
The central control unit 4 detects off-hook and outputs an off-hook signal to the telephone network exchange. When detecting the off-hook signal, the telephone network exchange sends a dial tone to the telecommunications terminal 1. The user confirms the dial tone and inputs a dial to the dial input unit 3. The central control unit 4 detects a dial input by the user to the dial input unit 3 and stores the dial in the dial storage unit 6. Central control unit 4
When the dial stored in the dial storage unit 6 is a domestic long-distance call, the access code is stored in the dial storage unit 6.
From the telephone line 2 via the dial output unit 7. The access code is stored as in the example of FIG. 6 and FIG. FIG. 6 shows an example in which a seven-digit code is used as an access code. FIG. 7 shows an example in which a combination of a free call number or a local telephone number, a pause time, an identification number indicating a user, and the like is used as an access code. The dial input by the user to the dial input unit 3 until the output of the access code is completed is detected by the central control unit 4 and additionally stored in the dial storage unit 6. When the output of the access code is completed, the central control unit 4 reads out the dial from the dial storage unit 6, and
Dial output is made to the telephone line 2 via the dial output unit 7. The dial number continuously dialed by the user is dialed out from the dial output unit 7 to the telephone line 2.

A telecommunications terminal for automatically dialing an access code of an Internet telephone service according to a fourth aspect will be described with reference to FIGS. 1, 8, and 9. When the user performs an off-hook operation, the telecommunication terminal 1
The central control unit 4 detects off-hook and outputs an off-hook signal to the telephone network exchange. When detecting the off-hook signal, the telephone network exchange sends a dial tone to the telecommunications terminal 1. The user confirms the dial tone and inputs a dial to the dial input unit 3. The central control unit 4 detects a dial input by the user to the dial input unit 3 and stores the dial in the dial storage unit 6. Central control unit 4
If the dial stored in the dial storage unit 6 is an international call, the access code is read from the dial storage unit 6 and dialed out to the telephone line 2 via the dial output unit 7. The access code is stored as in the example of FIGS. FIG. 8 shows an example in which a seven-digit code is used as an access code. FIG. 9 shows a free call number or a local telephone number as an access code,
An example in which a combination of a pause time, an identification number indicating a user, and the like is used will be described. The dial entered by the user into the dial input unit 3 until the output of the access code is completed,
The central control unit 4 detects it and stores it additionally in the dial storage unit 6. When the output of the access code is completed, the central control unit 4
Reads out the dial from the dial storage unit 6 and dials out to the telephone line 2 via the dial output unit 7. The dial number continuously dialed by the user is dialed out from the dial output unit 7 to the telephone line 2.

[0019]

As described above, according to the present invention, a telecommunications terminal for automatically selecting a low-priced telephone company can provide a telephone service that is cheaper than a telephone service registered with priority connection in a wide geographical division or distance division. By using the service, it has a very small low-cost telephone company judgment table. Therefore, even an inexpensive telephone terminal having only a very small amount of memory can have a function of selecting an inexpensive telephone company without increasing costs.

[0020]

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an embodiment of a telecommunications terminal for automatically selecting a low-priced telephone company according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an embodiment of an access code table of the telecommunications terminal according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an embodiment of an access code table of the telecommunications terminal according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an embodiment of an access code table of the telecommunications terminal according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an embodiment of an access code table of the telecommunications terminal according to the present invention.

FIG. 6 is an embodiment of an access code table of the telecommunications terminal according to the present invention.

FIG. 7 is an embodiment of an access code table of the telecommunications terminal according to the present invention.

FIG. 8 is an embodiment of an access code table of the telecommunications terminal according to the present invention.

FIG. 9 is an embodiment of an access code table of the telecommunications terminal according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Telecommunication terminal 2 Telephone line 3 Dial input part 4 Central control part 5 Access code storage part 6 Dial storage part 7 Dial output part

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A telecommunications terminal for automatically selecting a telephone company having a low call charge based on a destination telephone number,
International calls, out-of-state calls, out-of-state LATA calls, in-state LAT
The access codes of the telephone companies with low call rates corresponding to the four types of intra-A calls are stored in advance, the telephone numbers to be dialed by the user when calling are detected, and the detected telephone numbers are entered. Analyze to determine which of the five categories, international calls, out-of-state calls, out-of-state LATA calls, in-state LATA calls, etc. Outside calls, intra-state LATA
If it corresponds to any of the four sections of the internal call, read the access code corresponding to the corresponding section, automatically dial the access code to a telephone line, and then dial the destination telephone number, Telecommunications terminal characterized by automatically selecting a telephone company with a low calling rate 2. A telecommunications terminal for automatically selecting a telephone company having a low call charge based on a destination telephone number,
The access codes of the telephone companies with low calling rates corresponding to the two categories of international calls and domestic long-distance calls are stored in advance, and the telephone number to be dialed by the user when making a call is detected. Analyze the destination phone number,
Judge which of the three categories, international call, domestic long-distance call, and other three categories, and if it falls into any of the two categories of the international call, domestic long-distance call, correspond to the applicable category. Reading the access code, automatically dialing the access code to a telephone line,
A telecommunications terminal which dials the destination telephone number and automatically selects a telephone company having a low call charge. 3. A telecommunications terminal for automatically selecting a telephone company having a low telephone charge based on a destination telephone number,
The access code of a low-cost telephone company corresponding to domestic long-distance calls is stored in advance, the telephone number to be dialed by the user when making a call is detected, and the detected telephone number is analyzed. The domestic long-distance call, and which of the other two classifications it falls into, and if it falls under the domestic long-distance call, reads the access code and automatically places the access code on the telephone line. Dialing, and then dialing the destination telephone number, and automatically selecting a telephone company with a low call charge. 4. A telecommunications terminal for automatically selecting a telephone company having a low call charge based on a destination telephone number,
The access code of a low-cost telephone company corresponding to the international call is stored in advance, the telephone number to be dialed by the user when making a call is detected, and the detected telephone number is analyzed, International call, determine which of the other two categories, if the corresponding international call, read the access code, automatically dial the access code to the telephone line, and then, Telecommunications terminal characterized by dialing the other party's telephone number and automatically selecting the telephone company with the lowest calling rate