JP3379497B2 - Automatic warning system and automatic warning method - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an automatic warning system and an automatic warning method suitable for notification (warning) of unpaid or nonpayment of telephone charges.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, call charges and information provision charges for subscribers who have subscribed to a public line or the like have been collectively billed, for example, every month. Also,
For unpaid or unpaid charges, the maintenance person is notified (warned) by telephone, mail (letter), electronic mail, or the like.

However, when the subscriber is absent, even if the maintenance person gives a telephone notification (warning) to the subscriber, the notification cannot be transmitted. Also, even if a notification (warning) is sent by mail (letter) or e-mail, not only is there no guarantee that the subscriber will confirm the mail (letter) or e-mail, etc. You may forget it.

From the above, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. H11-11
According to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 017693, when a charge information notification service is requested, a charge information notification path is set together with a communication path, and charge information such as a call charge and an information provision charge is set on the subscriber terminal via the charge information notification path. I will notify you. As a result, the charge information can be notified from the ATM exchange to the subscriber terminal by the inter-user data communication protocol without using a communication path or a specific signal line.

[0005]

However, in the above-mentioned prior art, since the charge information is notified by the digital signal, the subscriber terminal requires a device for converting / displaying the received charge information. .

In this case, there occurs a problem that the charge information cannot be notified to the analog subscriber terminal that handles only the voice signal. Further, since it is necessary to set a charge information notification path in addition to the communication path, the path setting process becomes complicated.

Moreover, since the excess monitoring processing unit is required to monitor the charge during communication and notify immediately when the charge reaches a prescribed amount, the cost required for constructing the system increases. Will be invited.

The present invention has been made in view of such a situation, and calls an analog subscriber terminal that handles only a voice signal by a simple process without incurring an increase in cost required for constructing a system. (EN) It is possible to provide an automatic warning system and an automatic warning method capable of surely notifying (warning) of unpaid or delinquent charges.

[0009]

An automatic warning system according to claim 1 connects a calling party and a called party, and
When a caller makes a call, the caller is provided with an electronic exchange that announces by analog voice signal if the caller is unpaid or delinquent, and the electronic exchange announces the unpaid or delinquent telephone charges. And station data that holds subscriber data including information indicating whether or not there is a contract for an announcement service to subscribers and information indicating unpaid or delinquent telephone charges, and data control that reads the subscriber data when making a call. Section and the subscriber data read out, the presence or absence of a contract for the service of the caller is determined, and if it is determined that there is a contract and the telephone charge is unpaid or delinquent, an announcement is made from the announcement device. After repeating a predetermined number of times, the call control means for continuing the normal call connection processing is provided, and the call control means determines the call type from the dialed number from the calling party to the called party and determines the service type. If it is outside the scope of the scan, without performing the announcement by the announcement device, and wherein the shifting to the normal call connection processing. The automatic warning method according to claim 2 includes a first step of connecting a caller and a callee, and when the caller is unpaid or delinquent in telephone charges when the caller makes a call. A second step of making an announcement using an analog audio signal , and the first and second steps include
Indicates whether or not the announcement service is contracted to the inbound
Subscriber data, including information and information indicating unpaid or delinquent telephone charges
Subscriber data at the time of calling and the third step of holding the data
Fourth step of reading the data and the read subscriber data
The caller's service contract based on
Process 5 and contract, and unpaid or delinquent telephone charges
If it is determined that there is, repeat the announcement a predetermined number of times
After repeating the sixth step and a predetermined number of times, a normal call connection process is performed.
And a seventh step of continuing the
The call type from the dialed number from the calling party to the called party.
Eighth step of judging and the result of judging the call type, the service
If it is not covered by the
And a ninth step of shifting to a normal call connection process . In the automatic warning system and the automatic warning method according to the present invention, the caller and the callee are connected to each other, and when the caller makes a call, when the caller has an unpaid or delinquent telephone charge, the analog Make announcements by voice signals.

[0010]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described below.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the concept of an embodiment of the automatic warning system of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the details of the electronic exchange of FIG. 1, and FIGS. It is a figure for demonstrating operation | movement of this electronic exchange.

The automatic warning system shown in FIG. 1 is an electronic exchange 100 that notifies (warns) the unpaid or delinquent telephone charges when a subscriber who has not paid or delinquent telephone charges calls.
Is equipped with.

That is, the electronic exchange 100 is shown in FIG.
As shown in FIG. 1A, when a call is made from the terminal of the subscriber A, as shown in FIG. 1B, an analog voice signal from the announcement device 113 in the electronic exchange 100 causes an unpaid or delinquent telephone charge. Will be announced. Then, after the announcement has been repeated a preset number of times, as shown in FIG. 1C, normal call connection is performed. By the way, the number of announcements is preferably such that it does not hinder the call, for example, 2 to 3 times is appropriate.

Details of the electronic exchange 100 are shown in FIG.
In the drawings described below, the same parts as those in FIG. 1 are designated by the same reference numerals.

The electronic exchange 100 has hardware 110.
And software 120. Hardware 1
10 includes a subscriber line group 111, a trunk group 112, an announcement device 113, a tone device 114, a switch 115, and a switch control device 116.

The subscriber line group 111 is connected to each subscriber A. The trunk group 112 is connected to another station. The announcement device 113 announces to the subscribers A whether or not the telephone charges have been unpaid by analog voice signals. The tone device 114 emits a tone. The switch 115 switches any of the subscriber line group 111, the trunk group 112, the announcement device 113, and the tone device 114. The switch controller 116 includes the switch 1
15 controls the switching operation.

The software 120 includes an operating system 121, a protocol common section 122, a basic call control section 123, a service control section 124, and a data control section 12.
5 and station data 126. Here, the basic call control unit 123 and the service control unit 124 are call control means.

The operating system 121 is software for allocating hardware resources. The protocol common unit 122 controls the subscriber line protocol 127 and the trunk line protocol 128 in common, and interfaces with the basic call control unit 123.

The basic call control unit 123 controls the call connection and interfaces with the protocol common unit 122. In addition, the basic call control unit 123 also determines whether or not there is a contract for a service, which will be described later, whether or not the telephone charge of the subscriber A is unpaid or nonpaid, and the call type. The service control unit 124
It interfaces with the basic call control unit 123 and realizes various additional services. Data control unit 12
5 reads and writes the station data 126. The station data 126 holds all data about stations including subscriber data including information indicating whether or not there is a contract for an announcement service to subscribers and information indicating nonpayment or nonpayment of telephone charges.

Next, the operation of the automatic warning system thus constructed will be described.

First, when the subscriber A makes a call, a signal for informing the origination of the subscriber A is issued from the subscriber line group 111 in FIG. At this time, the subscriber line protocol 1 of FIG.
27 detects the calling of the subscriber A, and the protocol common unit 12
The call detection of the subscriber A is reported to the basic call control unit 123 via the second line. When the basic call control unit 123 receives the report of the call origination detection of the subscriber A, the basic call control unit 123 operates the normal call processing.

Next, when the subscriber A dials the telephone number of the called party, the subscriber line group 111
A signal is issued to notify the called number. At this time,
The subscriber line protocol 127 detects a signal from the subscriber A, and the basic call control unit 1 receives the signal via the protocol common unit 122.
The number dialed by the subscriber A is notified to 23.

After receiving the number dialed by the subscriber A, the basic call control unit 123 analyzes the received digits and determines whether to activate the service. That is, the service activation determination here is to determine whether or not there is a contract for notifying (warning) the non-payment or non-payment of the telephone charge at the time of calling.

In this determination, as shown in FIG. 3, first, when the basic call control unit 123 requests the data control unit 125 to read the subscriber data of the subscriber A, the data control unit 125 makes the station data 126. The subscriber data of subscriber A is read from (step A1).

The basic call control unit 123 refers to the read subscriber data of the subscriber A, and determines whether the subscriber A has a contract for the above service (step A2).
When it is determined that the service contract has not been made, the determination of the presence or absence of the service ends.

On the other hand, when it is determined that the service contract is made, the basic call control unit 123 determines that the station data 1
From the subscriber data of 26 subscribers A, it is determined whether the caller is unpaid or delinquent (step A3). If it is determined that the caller has not failed to pay the charge or is not in arrears, the judgment ends. On the other hand, when it is determined that the caller has unpaid or unpaid charges, the basic call control unit 123 determines whether the call type obtained as a result of the numerical analysis is the target of the above service. (Step A4). If the call type is outside the scope of the above services, the determination of the presence or absence of the call type ends. Here, the call type not covered by the service means, for example, an emergency call such as police or fire.

When it is determined that the call type is the service target, the basic call control unit 123 transfers the call control to the service control unit 124. The service control unit 124 determines whether or not the subscriber A who made the call is unpaid or delinquent in the telephone charge, and when it is determined that the telephone charge is unpaid or delinquent, the basic call control unit 123 is notified of the telephone charge. Make a request for notification (warning) of non-payment or delinquency.

At this time, the basic call control unit 123 controls the announcement device 113 shown in FIG. 2 to notify (warn) the subscriber A of unpaid or delinquent telephone charges (step A).
5). The content of the announcement here is, for example, "The charge has not been paid. If the payment is not made as it is, the telephone will be temporarily unavailable."

When the above announcement is repeated a predetermined number of times (step A6), the basic call control section 123 stops the operation of the announcement device 113. After that, the basic call control unit 123 continues the normal call connection process.

Next, the above procedure will be described in detail with reference to the specific example of FIG.

First, as shown in FIG. 4A, it is assumed that the subscriber A who has a contract for the above-mentioned service dials the number of the normal subscriber B. At this time, after analyzing the numbers received by the basic call control unit 123 of FIG.
25 is requested to read the subscriber data of the subscriber A. The data control unit 125 reads the subscriber data of the subscriber A from the station data 126.

When the basic call control unit 123 refers to the read subscriber data of the subscriber A and confirms that the subscriber A has a contract for the above service, the calling subscriber A is called.
If it is determined whether or not the telephone charge is unpaid or delinquent, and if it is determined that the telephone charge is unpaid or delinquent, the above-described service is applied.

Further, the basic call control section 123 determines whether or not the call type is the target of the above-mentioned service based on the result of numerical analysis of the number dialed by the subscriber A. In this case, since the dialed number is for the normal subscriber B, it is subject to the above-mentioned service.

At this time, as shown in FIG. 4 (b), the basic call control unit 123 controls the announcement device 113 of FIG. 2 to notify the subscriber A that the telephone charge has not been paid or is not paid (warning). Let

Here, if the number of announcements (warnings) of notification (warning) of non-payment or non-payment of telephone charges is specified as, for example, three times, the announcement is repeated, for example, three times. Thereafter, as shown in FIG. 4 (c), the call arrives at subscriber B, which is the number dialed by subscriber A.

Further, as shown in FIG. 4 (d), it is assumed that the subscriber A who has a contract for the above-mentioned service dials the fire service number. In this case, since the call type is outside the scope of the above service, the above-mentioned announcement is not performed and the call arrives at the fire department, which is the number dialed by the subscriber A, as shown in FIG.

As described above, in this embodiment, the subscriber A who is the calling party and the subscriber B who is the called party are connected, and when the subscriber A makes a call, the calling party A is called. An announcement is made by an analog voice signal from the announcement device 113 when there is an unpaid or unpaid charge.

Therefore, since the announcement indicating the nonpayment or nonpayment of the telephone charge is issued every time the subscriber A makes a call, the subscriber A can be surely notified (warning) of the nonpayment or nonpayment of the telephone charge. it can.

Further, since the announcement is performed by an analog voice signal, unlike the conventional case, a device for converting / displaying the charge information received by the subscriber terminal is not required, and the communication path and the charge information notifying path are used. The setting of is also unnecessary.

Further, since information indicating whether the telephone charge of the subscriber A is unpaid or not paid is stored in the station data 126, and the information is confirmed when the subscriber A makes a call. As described above, the charge is monitored during communication, and the excess monitoring processing unit that immediately notifies when the charge reaches a prescribed amount is not required, so that it is possible to suppress an increase in cost required for system construction.

Furthermore, if the call type is judged and the service is not covered by the above-mentioned service, the call is made to immediately arrive at the number dialed by the subscriber A, for example, the fire department. You can also make incoming calls smoothly.

In the present embodiment, the case has been described in which the above-mentioned announcement is performed by an analog voice signal. However, the present invention is not limited to this example, and when subscriber A is an ISDN terminal, a call is made. It is also possible to display a warning message on the screen of the terminal each time it is performed, instead of the announcement described above.

[0043]

As described above, according to the automatic alerting system and the automatic alerting method of the present invention, the calling party and the called party are connected, and when the calling party makes a call, the calling party is charged a telephone charge. If an analog voice signal is used to make an announcement when there is a non-payment or non-payment, a telephone call can be made to an analog subscriber terminal that handles only voice signals with simple processing without incurring the cost increase required for system construction. A notification (warning) for unpaid or non-payment of charges can be surely performed.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a concept according to an embodiment of an automatic warning system of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing details of the electronic exchange of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the electronic exchange shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining the details of the operation of the electronic exchange of FIG.

[Explanation of symbols] 100 electronic exchange 110 hardware 111 subscriber line group 112 trunk group 113 Announcement device 114 tone device 115 switch 116 Switch control device 120 software 121 operating system 122 Protocol common part 123 Basic call control unit 124 Service control unit 125 data control unit 126 station data 127 subscriber line protocol 128 trunk protocol

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-7-321911 (JP, A) JP-A-11-127462 (JP, A) JP-A-5-48776 (JP, A) JP-A-5- 75747 (JP, A) JP-A-7-283890 (JP, A) JP-A-9-83676 (JP, A) JP-A-9-214639 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) H04M 15/00 101 H04M 3/42 H04M 3/50

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A connection between a calling party and a called party,
When the caller makes a call, the caller is provided with an electronic exchange that makes an announcement by an analog voice signal when the caller has an unpaid or delinquent telephone charge, and the electronic exchange has an unpaid or delinquent telephone charge. Announcement device to announce, station data holding subscriber data including information indicating whether there is a contract for the service of the announcement to the subscriber and information indicating nonpayment or delinquency of the telephone charge, and at the time of calling, the A data control unit that reads out subscriber data, and determines whether or not there is a contract for the service of the caller based on the read-out subscriber data, determines whether there is a contract and whether the telephone charge has not been paid. If you determine that you are in arrears,
After repeating the announcement from the announcement device a predetermined number of times, the call control means for continuing normal call connection processing, and the call control means, from the dial number from the caller to the called party An automatic warning system, wherein a call type is determined, and if the service is not subject to the service, the announcement is not performed by the announcement device and the normal call connection process is performed. 2. A first step of connecting a caller and a callee, and by an analog voice signal when the caller is unpaid or delinquent in telephone charges when the caller makes a call. A second step of making an announcement , wherein the first and second steps include a contract for the service of the announcement to the subscriber.
Information indicating presence / absence and information indicating non-payment or delinquency of the telephone charge
And a fourth step of reading the subscriber data when making the call.
The caller based on the process and the read subscriber data.
5th step of judging whether or not there is a contract for the service, and that there is a contract and there is an unpaid or delinquent telephone charge.
If judged, the sixth announcement in which the announcement is repeated a predetermined number of times
After repeating the above steps and the predetermined times, continue the normal call connection process.
And a call type from the dial number from the caller to the called party in the fifth to seventh steps.
Eighth step of determining the call type, and the result of determining the call type is outside the scope of the service
If the normal call is made without making the announcement,
It is characterized in that it includes a ninth step of shifting to connection processing.
Automatic warning method to collect.