JPH04304759A - Exchange provided with incoming call priority function and incoming call transfer function - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To attain a communication while the priority of a request of a caller to communication setting, the privacy of a called party and the acceptance of the incoming call are well-arranged by employing a PBX having a specific function or a station exchange. CONSTITUTION:A PBX or a station exchange 101 having an incoming call priority function and an incoming call transfer function is provided and interconnected with a telephone set FK1 with an incoming call priority condition setting function by a subscriber line and a caller telephone set FK2 to the telephone set FK1 with the incoming call priority condition setting function is interconnected to the PBX or the station exchange SW by the subscriber line to form a same telephone network. Then the priority condition of incoming call establishment decided in advance by a called party is set and the priority condition of an incoming call transfer decided by the called party when the called party is absent is set to telephone sets designated in advance among telephone sets under the control. When an incoming call reaches, only when the priority condition sent by the caller is in matching with the condition of the priority, the incoming call is accepted or transferred.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a switching system connected to a private network or a public telephone network, and particularly to incoming calls.

0002

[Prior Art] Conventional exchanges are configured so that when a subordinate telephone receives an incoming call, it sends a signal to the telephone without distinguishing between all incoming calls, and the telephone rings the incoming call. To accommodate this, when the handset is picked up, the incoming ring tone stops and the call can be started. Furthermore, in a normal switchboard, when the telephones under the control operate the forwarding function, all incoming calls are forwarded without distinction.

0003

[Problem to be Solved by the Invention] Therefore, with telephones currently in common use, when a caller makes a dial call to a specific called party (communicator), the called party's telephone is either busy or not. Since the ringer always sounds except when the transfer function is in operation, the called party can hang off the phone no matter how busy he or she is, or when receiving unnecessary or non-urgent calls such as annoying sales commercials. It is necessary to respond. However, answering machines are still in use today, but if you rely solely on them and do not answer calls by staying near the telephone, if the caller's communication is truly important or confidential, the content will be clear. It was not communicated to the
In other cases, the information was not communicated to the called party due to hesitation in recording. Therefore, in business, important people (VIPs)
), missed opportunities for business negotiations, failed marriage deals in private correspondence, failure to accurately convey confidential information about close family members, and even worse, in the case of correspondence from a foreign country. There have been cases where the calling party or the called party has to call again, resulting in economic and time wastage.

On the other hand, the current telecommunications industry is said to be in the era of ISDN construction, and it is said that various new services will be possible in the future. Regarding telephone services, the following services are said to be launched in the near future. 1) A service in which the calling party's telephone number or self-identification number can be recognized by the called telephone. 2) If the caller travels away from the place where he/she is always present (in the case of an NTT subscriber phone, the subscriber's home phone) ID card (equivalent to the subscriber phone number as self-identification information) If you bring an ID card with you, you can insert your ID card into a phone at your place of work and it will have the same functionality as the phone owned by the ID card, and the phone charges associated with use will be added to your home phone. In terms of 1) and 2) above, it can be said that we are approaching the age of personal communication, where each person owns their own telephone. On the other hand, from the perspective of the person receiving the call from the caller (receiver), it can be said that the following detailed communication services are now required. 3) Ensuring privacy 4) Recipient (
Emphasis on the rights of the called party

[0005] In such an era, the above-mentioned inconvenience was considered to be a mismatch between the progress of communication and the rights of people in daily life, and was a problem that required major improvement.

[0006] In addition, telephones with forwarding functions are also a nuisance to the called (calling) party. Suppose that a user of a telephone that is normally at his/her seat is set so that incoming calls are transferred to the telephone at his/her seat when he/she goes somewhere else for business. In this case, all incoming calls addressed to one's desk are forwarded to the user when he/she is away, and therefore, apart from important calls, even less important calls must be answered while away, resulting in a lot of waste. Furthermore, even though it is called a transfer destination phone, it is a phone that is normally used by someone other than the person at their desk, and using the transfer destination phone for a long time may be interfering with the incoming or outgoing calls of the normal user. It could also happen. Therefore, it would be desirable to have a method in which incoming calls are transferred to the called party only if the content of the call is considered important by the called party, but such a service has not been implemented to date.

An object of the present invention is to enable a user of a subordinate telephone to answer only incoming calls that meet predetermined priority conditions, and to enable a user to answer only incoming calls that meet predetermined priority conditions. An object of the present invention is to provide an exchange having an incoming call priority function and an incoming call transfer function that allow the incoming call to be transferred to a different destination.

[0008]

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve this object, the incoming call priority function switching equipment of the present invention provides an incoming call priority function to a pre-designated telephone among the telephones under its control. There is an incoming call priority condition setting function that sets the priority conditions for establishing a call established by the called party in advance, and an incoming call priority condition setting function that sets the priority conditions for incoming call transfer determined by the called party when the called party is absent. The transfer condition setting function includes a transfer condition setting function, and the priority information regarding the call sent by the calling party of the incoming call at the time of making the call sets the priority condition of the incoming call establishment set in advance by the called party to the priority condition setting function. The incoming call is established only when the conditions are met, and when the called party is absent, the incoming call is forwarded by the incoming call forwarding function only when the priority conditions for incoming call forwarding are satisfied. Configured. As a result, the inconvenience that existed in the past is no longer present.

[0009] According to the present invention, the urgency of the caller's communication, whether it is a report or a request to the called party, whether it is a local call or a long distance call, whether it is an important person or not, etc. While identifying
The called party's readiness to accept incoming calls is based on priorities, such as whether the called party is busy or not, and whether the number for an international call will be accepted even if it is difficult, and the importance of the caller's communication and the priority of the called party. It is possible to establish an incoming call only when the conditions match, and use the answering machine function of the exchange for other cases.

Next, regarding the forwarding function, when the user of the telephone with the above function is away from his or her desk, an incoming call occurs and the call is accepted and forwarded from the caller, or is rejected and transferred to the exchange. It has a priority condition setting function that sets the priority conditions set by the called party in advance in order to determine whether to utilize the answering function of the caller.By sending this priority information to the exchange in advance, the exchange The call is made by transferring the incoming call to the forwarding destination phone only when the priority information regarding the call sent by the person when making the call satisfies the priority conditions set in advance by the called party in the priority condition setting function. This frees the called party from the hassle of answering incoming calls for calls that are not very urgent or important, and also reduces unnecessary burden on the user of the forwarding phone. Measures such as this become possible.

[0011]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The structure and functions of the present invention will be explained below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 2 shows a telephone with an incoming call priority condition setting function (hereinafter referred to as a telephone with an incoming call priority function) FK used in the present invention.
An example of the configuration of 1 is shown below. As shown in FIG. 1, on the left side of the figure, there is a PBX or central office exchange 101 (hereinafter referred to as a functional exchange) having an incoming call priority function and an incoming call forwarding function, and a telephone set FK1 with an incoming call priority condition setting function. is connected between subscribers, and the telephone with incoming call priority function FK1
The calling telephone FK2 is also connected to the PBX or the central office exchange SW through subscriber lines L1 and L2, forming the same telephone network. This is shown in Figure 1. Here, 101-1 is a switch network, 101-2 is a communication control unit that controls the switch network 101-1 to connect each subscriber, and 101-3 is a storage unit that stores priority conditions according to the present invention. , 101-4
101-5 is an incoming call condition checking unit, and 101-5 is an answering machine function unit. Further, the calling telephone FK2 also has the same functions according to the present invention as in FIG. However, the forwarding destination phone FK3
However, it is not necessarily necessary to have the functions according to the present invention.

In FIG. 2, reference numeral 1 denotes a dialing and signal transmitting section, which has the function of amplifying a dialing signal when a call is made and a signal from the transmitter 6 during a conversation, and transmitting the amplified signal to the subscriber lines L1 and L2. 2 is a signal receiving unit which rings a telephone bell 8 when the conventional conditions for establishing a call are received, and when the handset is in a hang-off state, receives a control signal from the control unit 4 and sends it to the subscriber line L1.
, L2, and has the function of starting a conversation with the caller.

Reference numeral 5 denotes an incoming call condition setting device, and when the owner of the telephone sets the incoming call condition, the control section 4 operates the dialing and signal transmitting section 1 to notify the functional exchange 101 of the incoming call condition. The functional exchange 101 that receives this signal stores it in the storage unit 101-3 shown in FIG.

The incoming call condition checking section 101-4 and the incoming call condition setting device 5, which are one of the features of the present invention, will be explained in detail below. Whenever you look at the callee's daily life or work situation, what (less important)
There aren't many situations where you can answer a phone call about the content, and you usually have some kind of job to do. However, if we look closely at the content of the work, even when we are doing very complex or important work, there are times when we do not have a lot of time and it is okay to take a break and answer the phone. On the other hand, the conditions on the caller side may also vary. In particular, there are a variety of situations, such as when you don't necessarily need to call right now, but you want to make a call when you have free time, or when you want the other party to answer if they have free time, or when you want to make an emergency call.

[0016] Assume that when a user of a telephone that is normally at his or her desk goes somewhere else for business, incoming calls are transferred to the telephone at his or her desk. In this case, all incoming calls addressed to one's desk are forwarded to the user when he/she is away, and therefore, apart from important calls, even less important calls must be answered while away, resulting in a lot of waste. In addition, even though it is called a forwarding phone, it is a phone that is used for personal use by a person other than the normal time, and using a forwarding phone for a long time is interfering with incoming or outgoing calls for normal users. It could also happen. Therefore, it is desirable to transfer incoming calls to the called party only if the content of the call is considered important by the called party.

[0017] Express the above-mentioned degree of necessity of the calling party and the conditions for answering the called party's phone as quantitatively as possible, and establish a call only when both conditions match, and if they do not match, the call is terminated. The role of the incoming call condition checking section 101-4 and the incoming call condition setting device 5 is to match the purpose, such as rejecting the call or recording a message on the answering machine.

First, a description will be given of quantifying the calling party's urgency and the called party's priority conditions. Tables 1 to 4 show examples of these. Table 1 focuses on the urgency of the caller's communication, and compares this with the priority conditions of the called party, and establishes a call if it is marked ○ on the matrix, or
This is an example of not doing this in the case of a mark. These conditions are often determined by the subjectivity of the called party, and in many cases cannot be determined in general.

[Table 1]

[Table 2]

[Table 3]

[Table 4]

Table 2 shows the calling party and the called party (N within the 23 wards of Tokyo).
It focuses on the relative distance between telephones of subscribers (with TT area code 03), and is an example of making it easier to establish communication the longer distance calls are made, and ensuring that international calls are always successful. be. Table 3 is an example in which the more important the caller is (a person with a high position or power), the easier it is to establish communication. Table 4 focuses on the content of the caller's communication, and shows that in the callee's subjective selection, the callee's undesired requests are low and the reports that are advantageous (for example, information provision) are high, and the calls that are particularly profitable are high. This is an example in which the higher the number of reports received, the higher the rate of incoming calls.

Next, the role and operation of the incoming call condition setting device 10 will be explained. First, the setting of incoming call conditions is changed on an hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly basis depending on how busy the telephone subscriber is at the time, his social status, and his environment. For example, when a salary earner returns home after finishing his daily work and relaxes after dinner, the setting is as follows. The next time you take a bath, if your family is with you, you may be in the above state, but if you are working alone, you may choose to be in the above state.

Furthermore, when it is 11:00 pm and you go to bed, the following settings are made, for example. Setting such conditions is easy with either hardware or software, and a setting signal is sent to the incoming call condition matching section 5 each time the setting is made.

[0022] Also, if a certain telephone subscriber (in Tokyo) does not like to be bothered by the ringtone of the telephone at night, but would like to receive calls from his parents in Osaka, the following is the case: All you have to do is set a priority condition. In the above conditions, the incoming call condition is the logical sum (OR) of A to D.
).

[0023] Furthermore, suppose that a certain telephone subscriber has joined a club to receive the latest information for stock investment, and wants to obtain information that affects stock prices even late at night or early in the morning, even if he is in bed. . In this case, the call priority condition may be set as follows at bedtime. In the above conditions, the incoming call condition is the logical sum (OR) of A to D.
).

[0024] Also, if a certain housewife is willing to make a long phone call when her husband is away during the day if she receives a call from a friend, but she does not like incoming calls to her husband, she may set the following conditions. Table 1 A≧1 Table 2 B≧1 Table 3 C=1 (for non-VIP) C=5
(For VIP) Table 4 D≧1 Under the above conditions, the incoming call condition is the logical product (AND) of A to D.
).

These conditions set for the incoming call are sent to the storage section 101-3 of the functional exchange 101 as a setting signal. The storage unit 101-3 that receives this signal stores this information in its storage circuit and waits for an incoming call from a third party.

Now, suppose that there is an incoming call from a third party's telephone FK2. The operation of the functional exchange 101 of FIG. 1 according to the present invention at this time will be explained using FIG. 3. The functional exchange 101 that receives the incoming call signal from the calling side telephone checks whether or not the priority conditions required for the incoming call are indicated together with the incoming call signal, and if so, the conditions are stored in the memory circuit 10.
In order to compare the call condition with the call condition stored in step 1, a call condition comparison unit compares the two. As a result, if it is found that the incoming call condition is satisfied, a calling signal is sent to the incoming telephone. The called telephone that receives this sends out a ringing tone from the bell 8. At this time, if the called party is nearby, he/she will pick up the handset to establish the call and begin the conversation, and when the call is finished, the call will be terminated by hanging up the handset (hang-on). If the incoming call conditions are not satisfied, the functional exchange activates the answering machine function section 101-5 and switches to answering machine service, saying, ``I am currently busy (not available) and cannot answer the call, so I will record a message.'' Provide voice service with the person and record the message. In addition, if the priority order required for the incoming call is not indicated with the incoming call signal in the above operation flow, the talkie will say "The owner of the number you called is busy and will connect you according to the priority order." status. Please indicate the priority conditions in the following order. Please indicate whether it is an emergency (1, 2), whether it is a long distance call or a long distance call, in 3 stages according to the distance (4 for international calls), etc. It is. Note that it is difficult to present all of Tables 1 to 4 as these priority conditions, and it is necessary to limit them to those that can be presented, and to simplify the number of evaluation stages to 2 to 3 stages. Now, when answers to these are sent from the calling side telephone in the form of voices or tones, the functional exchange 101 recognizes these, converts them into digital signals, and sends the incoming call conditions to the incoming call condition checking section 101-4. do. The matching unit 101-4 compares the incoming call conditions upon receiving this signal with the priority conditions for incoming calls determined by the called party in the same manner as described above, and if all these conditions are satisfied, the call is made to the called telephone. It sends a signal, and if it is not satisfied, it switches to an answering service.

FIG. 3 is an operational flow diagram for setting call priority conditions.

[0028] The above-described example allows for the setting of incoming call priority conditions even if the conditions are somewhat unclear. However, as mentioned above, along with the construction of the ISDN network, if the aforementioned caller ID, PIN ID, calling place information, or priority conditions related to individual communication contents can be displayed digitally as a new telephone service, even more accurate call priority conditions will be possible. Can be set. FIG. 4 shows an example of the calling party's information sent to the called party in this case. Therefore, it is clear from the above example that the called party can set more detailed and accurate priority conditions than the priority conditions shown in Tables 1 to 4 based on this information.

The above has been an explanation regarding the setting of incoming call priority conditions and verification, but the setting of transfer conditions will be explained below. Since call forwarding is quite troublesome for the called party as described above, the called party generally imposes conditions that are equal to or stricter than the call receiving conditions. In the case of equality, a common area of the storage unit 101-3 can be used for setting the incoming call priority condition and the transfer priority condition for each telephone.

[0030] For example, suppose that a certain telephone subscriber has joined a club to receive the latest information in order to invest in stocks, and wants to receive information that affects stock prices even when he is away. In this case, the call transfer conditions may be set as follows. In the above conditions, the incoming call condition is the logical sum (OR) of A to D.
).

[0031] The above-described example allows for somewhat unclear transfer condition settings. However, as mentioned above, along with the construction of the ISDN network, if the caller ID, PIN ID, calling place information, or transfer conditions related to individual communication contents can be displayed digitally as a new telephone service, more accurate call transfer conditions will be possible. Can be set. FIG. 4 can also be used in this case. That is, it is clear from the above example that the called party can set more detailed and accurate priority conditions than the priority conditions shown in Tables 1 to 4 based on this information.

FIG. 5 shows the forwarding function performed by the functional exchange 101 when the called telephone FK1 has the forwarding function in operation.
FIG. 2 is a flowchart summarizing the operation of incoming call transfer to.

[0033] In the above explanation, the transfer telephone is not equipped with an incoming call priority condition setting function, or even if it is equipped, the transfer telephone accepts incoming calls unconditionally. However, if the forwarding telephone also has an incoming call priority condition setting function and this function operates for all incoming calls, this condition will be followed for the establishment of an incoming call even when the incoming call is forwarded. If you are not satisfied, you will be put on answering machine.

[0034]

Effects of the Invention As described in detail above, by using a telephone with an incoming call priority condition setting function according to the present invention and a PBX or central office exchange having an incoming call priority function and an incoming call forwarding function, the communication settings of a caller can be changed. It has become possible to communicate with the callee in a state where the privacy of the callee and acceptance of the call is in place, and it is now possible to live a comfortable and highly efficient daily life without being subjected to the violence of telephone calls. Become.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a system diagram showing a configuration example of a telephone system using a PBX or a central office exchange having an incoming call priority function and an incoming call transfer function according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example of a telephone with an incoming call priority condition setting function used in the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an operational flow diagram for incoming call priority conditions.

FIG. 4 is an example of information from a calling party for setting incoming call priority conditions.

FIG. 5 is an operation flow diagram summarizing the operation of incoming call transfer.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Dial and signal transmitter 2 Signal receiving section 4 Control section 5 Incoming call condition setting device 6. Transmitter 7　Telephone receiver 8 Electric bell

Claims (2)

[Claims] [Claim 1] An incoming call priority condition setting function for setting, for a pre-specified telephone among the subordinate telephones, priority conditions for establishing a call established by the called party in advance for incoming calls to the telephone. and a call forwarding condition setting function that sets priority conditions for call forwarding determined by the called party when the called party is absent, The incoming call is established only when the priority information regarding the call satisfies the priority conditions for establishing the incoming call set in advance by the called party in the priority condition setting function, and when the called party is absent, the incoming call is established. An exchange having a call priority function and a call transfer function configured to transfer the call using the call transfer function only when priority conditions for call transfer are satisfied. 2. Claim 1, wherein the priority condition for establishing the incoming call and the priority condition for transferring the incoming call are the same.
Switching equipment that has the described call priority function and call forwarding function.