Announcing presence information during telephone call ringback

• US 20070025530A1
• Filed: 07/05/2005
• Published: 02/01/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 07/05/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Moore, Timothy, Tidwell, Paul, Barkley, Warren
• Granted Patent: US 7,620,160 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/88.250
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/654 Pre, in or post-call message
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/02 Calling substations, e.g. by ringing selective calling H04Q
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42017 Customized ring-back tones
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42365 Presence services providing information on the willingness to communicate or the ability to communicate in terms of media capability or network connectivity
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42382 Text-based messaging services in telephone networks such as PSTN/ISDN, e.g. User-to-User Signalling or Short Message Service for fixed networks

Abstract

A method and system for outputting a call announcement based on presence information of a callee as a ringback tone is provided. The announcement system is provided with presence information of users. When the telephone system receives an indication of an incoming call from a caller, the telephone system identifies the callee. After the callee is identified, the announcement system retrieves the presence information for the callee and generates an announcement based on that presence information.

Claims

1. A method in a telephone system for providing a call announcement, the method comprising:

receiving an indication of an incoming call from a caller to a callee;

after receiving the indication, retrieving presence information for the callee; and

outputting to the caller an announcement derived from the retrieved presence information before the call is connected.

2. The method of claim 1 including forwarding the call to the callee before the announcement is output.

3. The method of claim 1 including after the output of the announcement has been completed, forwarding the call to the callee.

4. The method of claim 1 including performing pre-announcement processing before outputting the announcement.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the pre-announcement processing is selected from a group consisting of terminating the call, forwarding the call to the callee, and forwarding the call to voicemail without outputting the announcement.

6. The method of claim 1 including performing post-announcement processing after outputting the announcement.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the post-announcement processing is selected from a group consisting of terminating the call, forwarding the call to the callee, and forwarding the call to voicemail.

8. The method of claim 1 including subscribing to presence information of callees and when presence information of a callee is published, storing the presence information.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the presence information includes an announcement recorded by the callee.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the presence information includes availability of the callee and the announcement announces the availability of the callee.

11. The method of claim 1 including receiving input from the caller during the output of the announcement and processing the call in accordance with the input from the caller.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the processing of the call in accordance with the input from the caller includes processing selected from the group consisting of alerting the caller that the call is high priority, forwarding the call to voicemail, and customizing the announcement.

13. A computer-readable medium containing instructions for controlling a computer system to provide a ringback tone by a method comprising:

receiving an indication of an incoming call from a caller to a telephone number;

identifying a called user from the called telephone number using a mapping of users to telephone numbers;

retrieving presence information for the called user, the presence information including availability of the called user; and

outputting to the caller a ringback tone indicating the availability of the called user.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 13 including forwarding the call to the called user before outputting the ringback tone.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 13 including after the output of the ringback tone has been completed, forwarding the call to the called user wherein a second ringback tone is output after the call is forwarded.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 13 including performing pre-ringback tone processing before outputting the ringback tone and post-ringback tone processing after outputting the ringback tone based on the retrieved presence information.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 13 including receiving input from the caller during the output of the ringback tone and processing the call in accordance with the input from the caller.

18. A telephone system for providing call announcements, the telephone system comprising:

a component that receives an indication of an incoming call from a caller;

a component that identifies the callee of the incoming call and retrieves presence information for the identified callee; and

a component that outputs to the caller an announcement during ringback derived from the retrieved presence information.

19. The telephone system of claim 18 wherein the announcement is superimposed on a ringing sound.

20. The telephone system of claim 18 wherein the presence information includes availability of the callee and the announcement announces the availability of the callee.