Telephone call fee notifying system and telephone call fee notifying apparatus

• US 5,937,045 A
• Filed: 03/15/1996
• Issued: 08/10/1999
• Est. Priority Date: 03/17/1995
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Original Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Inventors: Mizobe, Masatoshi, Atsuta, Hiromi, Mori, Mariko, Sato, Hiroshi, Takahashi, Takemasa, Ikeda, Saburou, Yoshida, Chizuko, Yaoya, Naoko
• Primary Examiner(s): Shankar, Vijay
• Application Number:
  US08/616,615
• Time in Patent Office: 1,243 Days
• Field of Search: 379/67, 379/80, 379/88, 379/112, 379/114, 379/130, 379/133, 379/142, 379/121
• US Class Current: 379/130
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/28 with meter at substation or with calculation of charges at terminal

Abstract

Telephone call fee notifying system and apparatus for informing a calling subscriber of a fee for telephoning a destination before talking starts. When the calling subscriber dials a special number, this special number is recognized by a charging information request recognizing unit, a telephone call fee for a connection destination is calculated in response to subsequently transmitted dialing by means of a charging calculation unit and a calculated telephone call fee is informed to the calling subscriber in the form of a speech by means of a charging information speech outputting unit. Listening to the speech, the calling subscriber decides whether a circuit connection is to be done or not and when the circuit connection is determined, an operation therefor is carried out to establish a connection to the desired connection destination.

Claims

1. A telephone call fee notifying system comprising:

means for calculating a telephone call fee for a destination to which a calling subscriber desires to connect in response to said calling subscriber dialing a predetermined telephone number which represents a request for charging information; and

means for informing said calling subscriber of a calculated telephone call fee in the form of a speech message.

2. A telephone call fee notifying system according to claim 1, wherein said predetermined telephone number is a number that does not interfere with a telephone number in the network plan.

3. A telephone call fee notifying apparatus in an exchange system comprising:

charging information request recognizing means for recognizing a predetermined telephone number representing that a charging information request is transmitted from a calling subscriber to said exchange system;

charging calculation means for calculating charging information on the basis of an originated dial number when a charging information request is transmitted from said calling subscriber to said exchange system;

charging information speech outputting means for informing said calling subscriber of the charging information in the form of a speech message when the charging information request is transmitted from said calling subscriber to said exchange system;

talking request recognizing means for recognizing a talking request from said calling subscriber to said exchange system; and

talking connection executing means for executing a talking connection to a called subscriber only when said calling subscriber issues a talking request to said exchange system,

whereby when the charging information request is transmitted from said calling subscriber, the charging information is provided to said calling subscriber in the form of a speech message on the basis of the originated dial number and if said calling subscriber confirms the charging information and issues the talking request, then the talking connection to said called subscriber is executed.

4. The apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the predetermined telephone number is a number that does not interfere with a telephone number network plan.

5. A telephone call fee notifying method comprising:

(a) calculating a telephone call fee for a destination to which a calling subscriber desires to connect in response to said calling subscriber dialing a predetermined telephone number which represents a request for charging information; and

(b) informing said calling subscriber of a calculated telephone call fee in the form of a speech message.

6. A telephone call fee notifying method as claimed in claim 5, wherein said step (a) further comprises calculating a telephone call fee for a destination to which a calling subscriber desires to connect in response to said calling subscriber dialing a telephone of said destination to which the calling subscriber desires to connect and then dialing a predetermined telephone number which represents a request for charging information.