Inventors:
Barbara I. Gaechter - Tinton Falls NJ
Paramdeep S. Sahni - Marlboro NJ
I. Grace Tseng - Middletown NJ
Assignee:
AT&T IPM Corp. - Coral Gables FL
International Classification:
H04M 342
H04M 700
H04M 300
H04Q 364
Abstract:
An outbound call management capability is provided for a public switched telephone network by a network based outbound call management (NOCM) complex, which can be accessed by all subscribers to the public switched network through one or more central offices in the network. A predetermined list of telephone numbers is stored in a data base in the NOCM complex for each subscriber who uses the NOCM services. The telephone numbers are automatically dialed at one or more predetermined scheduled times. When one of the dialed telephones is answered, the NOCM complex sets up a connection through the public switched telephone network between the called party and one or more attendants at one or more telephone numbers specified by a customer of the NOCM services. The NOCM services are made available to any subscriber of the public switched telephone network by provision of a special access code which permits a subscriber who is a customer of this service to dial the NOCM complex which will then interact with the customer by responding to voice or DTMF commands from the customer. The customer may program the list of telephone numbers to be called and program the telephone phone numbers to be used by the NOCM system to connect awaiting attendants with parties automatically called by the NOCM system.