Facsimile telecommunications system and method

Abstract

A system and method for facilitating facsimile transmissions has one or more store and forward facilities. The store and forward facilities include a computer for controlling operations and mass data storage equipment. Subscriber mailboxes are provided as part of the mass storage, which can be accessed by a subscriber to have his messages delivered to any facsimile machine he designates. Secure facsimile transmission is achieved through use of subscriber PIN numbers. The system can also be used in cooperation with a paperless facsimile machine which directly displays the facsimile message on a screen and is capable of entering outgoing facsimile messages to the store and forward facility.

Description

[0001] This is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 07 / 248,798 on Sep. 0.22, 1988, in the name of Richard J. Gordon and James R. Kennedy and assigned to F-Mail Associates, L.P.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] The field of this invention is telecommunications systems used in connection with facsimile transmissions. More specifically, this invention relates to a system and method for enhancing ease of facsimile transmissions and providing features relative to facsimile transmissions not heretofore available. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003] The electronic transmission of documents by way of facsimile (fax) systems employing public and private switched telephone networks has become both commonplace and, often, an essential component in many business activities. In such a setting, it is very common for the fax terminals (fax machines) to be kept quite busy during a major fraction of the business day. Moreover, where sender and recipient are in different time zones, the “busines...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

Enhances the efficiency of fax transmission by reducing wasteful retries, ensuring secure document delivery, and optimizing the use of long-distance lines, while allowing users to manage messages and costs more effectively.

Problems solved by technology

These circumstances present a number of practical problems for a fax user.

This is a “hit or miss” process at best and can be very wasteful of the originating operator's time.

However, this is limited to only one or two documents and, more importantly, it ties up the transmitting machine until the effort is successful or abandoned.

This is hardly an acceptable solution if that machine has other documents to send or receive.

There are other conditions which can result in a failure to transmit even though a telephone connection has been established.

In such situations, repeated attempts to “redial” will lead to repeated toll charges with each attempt, with no actual success until the receiving machine is serviced (which may be some time if the machine is operating unattended because it is nighttime half-way around the world).

Busy machines which are destined to receive messages are affected by the converse problem.

Since they and the prospective transmitting machines must engage in (perhaps, automated) “telephone tag”, they are used very inefficiently.

Thus, the receiving machine will likely remain idle for some fraction of the time until such an attempt is made.

The practice of broadcasting documents to a number of addressees obviously compounds these problems and adds still others of its own.

Even if one does not encounter busy signals or impaired machines, convenient broadcasting demands an expensive memory-type fax machine on the transmitting end.

This, of course, exacerbates the busy signal problem for those units trying to contact the sending machine.

The security of sensitive documents is still another problem.

This is a very inconvenient situation in that it requires that the paper documents be held until the traveler phones in from a remote machine.

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