Distinctive Ringing via Intermediary Service System
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional residential telephone technology lacks advanced features, such as easy call screening and efficient communication between family members, especially when multiple residents share a limited number of analog phone lines, leading to annoyances like missed calls and inefficient message handling.
Innovation Solution
The Family Branch Exchange (FBX) system allows calling parties to select specific household members by dialing one or two digits, providing distinctive ringing, automatic call forwarding, unified voicemail notifications, and easy access to voicemail messages, facilitating communication across different devices and locations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If conventional single-line analog telephone service is used, then device simplicity is maintained, but call management efficiency and communication effectiveness deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a service provider system as an intermediary between the calling party and the called party. This system receives calls from the telephone network, plays menu messages to the calling party, receives selections, and transmits ring tone information to the appropriate telephone devices. This intermediary approach enables advanced call management features without requiring complex equipment at the user premises, thus improving productivity while keeping device complexity low.
Solution Approach 2:
The service provider system performs multiple functions: receiving calls from the telephone network, playing menu messages, receiving caller selections, determining ring tones, and transmitting information to multiple telephones. This multi-functional approach consolidates what would otherwise require multiple separate devices, improving call management efficiency without proportionally increasing device complexity.
2Measurement precision
If multiple telephones share a single analog line, then cost is reduced, but call routing precision and communication effectiveness deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses feedback loops where the service provider system receives the calling party's selection, determines the appropriate ring tone based on that selection, and then transmits the ring tone information to the specific telephone. This feedback mechanism enables precise call routing to the intended recipient even though multiple telephones share a single physical line, thus improving measurement precision without increasing the quantity of phone lines.
Solution Approach 2:
The service provider system plays a menu message to the calling party before the call is fully connected, allowing the caller to select the desired recipient in advance. This preliminary action enables the system to prepare the appropriate ring tone information and route the call correctly before the called party answers, improving call routing precision while maintaining cost-effective single-line sharing.
3Measurement precision
If distinctive ringing features are added to identify specific household members, then call routing precision is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The service provider system acts as an intermediary that generates and transmits distinctive ring tone information to the appropriate telephones. Instead of requiring each telephone to have built-in intelligence for distinctive ringing, the complex logic is placed in the service provider system, which then sends simple ring tone indicators to standard telephones. This approach improves call routing precision while minimizing the complexity increase at the user end devices.
Data Source
AI summary
A Family Branch Exchange (FBX) overcomes limitations of conventional residential telephone technology to inexpensively provide more useful and advanced residential telephone services. For example, a method of providing distinctive ringing comprises receiving, at a service provider system connected to a telephone network and optionally to a data network, a call from a calling party to a user of the service provider system, playing, from the service provider system to the calling party, a message indicating a plurality of choices from which to select, receiving, at the service provider system, the calling party's selection, and transmitting, from the service provider system, a message indicating a ring tone or ring type to be used based on the calling party's selection.