JPH09149177A - Facsimile equipment and its calling system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve the operating rate of the facsimile equipment accommodating plural lines by enhancing the probability of reception of incoming calls. SOLUTION: A main control section 10 writes date and time and weekday or the like to a storage section 13 for each line receiving an incoming call. In the case of making a call from the facsimile equipment, the main control section 10 reads incoming information for each line written in the storage section 13 and discriminates a line with lower probability of incoming based on the date and time and the week data information or the like in the read incoming information and informs the outgoing call to a communication control section 11 or 12 controlling the line to make the communication operation of the facsimile equipment.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a facsimile machine and its calling system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 10847/1992 (hereinafter referred to as "prior art") is provided with a communication control unit and a local line control unit for accommodating a plurality of lines. A "facsimile apparatus" is disclosed in which a plurality of lines are accommodated by a communication control unit in an external local line control unit connected by the above.

That is, in this prior art, a communication line connected to the communication control unit and a local line connected to the local line control unit are used to perform incoming and outgoing calls on each line. The local line is connected to the local line control unit of the communication control device. By connecting a large number of communication control devices, multiple lines are being constructed.

[0004]

In the above-mentioned prior art, a line designated by the user or a vacant line is selected and a call is made without considering the incoming call status of each line. Therefore, when there is an incoming call on the line, there is a problem that the incoming line cannot be received because the line has already been used for transmission.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above problems and, in a facsimile apparatus accommodating a plurality of lines, obtain the probability of incoming for each line to automatically select a line with a high probability of not receiving. It is an object of the present invention to provide a facsimile apparatus and a calling method thereof that can increase the probability of receiving an incoming call.

Another object of the present invention is to automatically select a calling line to manually select the calling line, and to reduce the operating rate of the facsimile apparatus due to the deviation of the used line during the manual selection. It is an object of the present invention to provide a facsimile apparatus capable of preventing the deterioration and a calling method thereof.

[0007]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, a calling system of a facsimile apparatus according to the present invention is a calling system in a facsimile apparatus accommodating a plurality of lines, and a situation of incoming call for each line. Is stored as incoming call information, and a step of automatically selecting and calling a line having a low probability of receiving a call at the time of calling based on the stored incoming call information.

Further, the facsimile apparatus according to the present invention is
In a facsimile apparatus accommodating a plurality of lines, a plurality of communication control units respectively connected to the plurality of lines, a storage unit that stores the incoming call status of each line as incoming call information, a plurality of communication control units and a storage unit. The line that has a low probability of receiving a call at the time of calling is automatically selected based on the incoming call information stored in the storage unit and a request for calling is made to the communication control unit of the selected line. And a main control unit for performing the operation.

[0009]

The incoming call status (number of incoming calls, day of the week, time, etc.) of the accommodated line is stored for each line, and the line to be called is automatically selected and called according to the stored incoming call condition.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a facsimile apparatus to which a calling method according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied. The illustrated facsimile machine includes a main control unit 10 that controls the entire device, and first and second communication control units 11 and 12 that control communication.
And a storage unit 1 for storing the time of arrival of calls, the day of the week, etc. for each line
And 3. The first communication control unit 11 controls communication on the line 1, and the second communication control unit 12 controls communication on the line 2.

Next, the operation of the facsimile apparatus shown in FIG. 1 when receiving an incoming call will be described. When there is an incoming call from the line 1, the first communication control unit 11 notifies the main control unit 10 to that effect. The main control unit 10 controls the fax machine to perform a communication operation. At this time, the line 1 that receives the call,
The date and time, the day of the week, etc. are written in the storage unit 13. Similarly, when an incoming call is received on the line 2, the main control unit 10 writes the line 2, date and time, day of the week, etc. in the storage unit 13. The incoming call information is written in the storage unit 13 for each line.

Next, the operation when the facsimile machine makes a call will be described. The main control unit 10 includes a storage unit 13
Reads the incoming call information for each line written in, determines the line with the lowest probability of receiving from the read information based on the date, time, day of the week, etc., and notifies the communication control unit that controls that line to call Then, the main control unit 10 controls the facsimile device so as to perform a communication operation.

Next, with reference to FIG. 2, the flow of the line selection control for making a call will be described. It should be noted that the present description is an example when the number of lines accommodated in the facsimile apparatus is two, as shown in FIG.

The main control unit 10 stores in the storage unit 13 during a calling operation.
The incoming call information, the date and time, the day of the week, etc. of the line 1 written in are read (step S1). Based on the read information on the line 1, the main control unit 10 obtains the current date and time on the line 1 and the incoming call probability for the day of the week (step S2). The probability is calculated based on the information received in a certain fixed period, and the period can be arbitrarily set. Similarly, the main control unit 10 reads the incoming call information of the line 2 (step S
3) Find the probability of incoming on line 2 (step S
4). The main control unit 10 selects a line having a low probability of receiving an incoming call based on the calculated incoming call probability for each line, and requests the communication control unit of the selected line to make a call (steps S5 to S7).

In the above embodiment, the case where there are two accommodation lines has been described, but it goes without saying that the same can be applied to the case where there are three or more accommodation lines.

[0017]

As described above, according to the present invention, in a facsimile machine capable of accommodating a plurality of lines, a line having a low probability of receiving a call is automatically selected and a call is made. It is possible to increase the operating probability of the facsimile apparatus as well as to increase the probability of doing so.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a facsimile apparatus to which a calling method according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart for explaining a flow of line selection control for calling in the facsimile apparatus shown in FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 main control unit 11, 12 communication control unit 13 storage unit

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. In a calling method in a facsimile apparatus accommodating a plurality of lines, a step of storing the incoming call status for each line as incoming call information, and an incoming call at the time of making a call based on the stored incoming call information And a step of automatically selecting a line with a low probability and making a call. 2. The incoming call status includes the number of incoming calls,
The calling system of the facsimile apparatus according to claim 1. 3. The incoming call status includes a day of the week.
Calling method of the described facsimile machine. 4. The calling system of a facsimile apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the incoming call status includes a time zone. 5. A facsimile apparatus accommodating a plurality of lines, a plurality of communication control units respectively connected to the plurality of lines, a storage unit for storing the incoming call status of each line as incoming call information, A line which is connected to the communication control unit and the storage unit and has a low probability of receiving an incoming call at the time of calling is automatically selected based on the incoming call information stored in the storage unit, and the communication control of the selected line is performed. And a main control unit for making a request for making a call to the facsimile unit. 6. The incoming call status includes the number of incoming calls,
The facsimile apparatus according to claim 5. 7. The method of claim 6, wherein the incoming call status includes a day of the week.
A facsimile machine as described. 8. The facsimile apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the incoming call status includes a time zone.