Enhanced private call screening
View Patent ↗A method and apparatus for identifying a caller who does not provide caller identification on an unanswered call. The caller is asked to record his/her name (or some other characteristic utterance). If the call is unanswered, the record is retained and can be accessed by the called party when that party requests his/her stored voice mail. Advantageously, even on unanswered calls, the identity of the caller can be presented to the called party when that called party requests stored voice mail messages, even if the calling party has private service.
1. In a telecommunications network a method of completing a call which did not include calling line identification information to a called party which does not accept calls that do not include calling line information, comprising the steps of:
routing said call to a service node having announcement and recording facilities;
from said service node, requesting a caller of said call to speak his or her name;
storing the requested name and a link to call information for said call in a personal call portal unit;
responsive to a first type of request from said called party, providing an indication to a personal computer of said called party indicating that said personal call portal unit has a stored name for a call to said called party;
in response to a second type of request from said personal computer, providing the stored name to said called party;
in response to a third type of request from said called party, accessing said call information via said link from said personal call portal unit;
establishing a connection from said called party to said calling party using said call information; wherein said calling party has a private number and said call is established over said network without revealing said private number to said called party.
2. The method of claim 1 further comprising the steps of:
storing a message from said caller in an answering service; and
responsive to a fourth type of request from said called party, connecting said called party to said answering service for retrieving said message left by said caller of said call.
3. A telecommunications network comprising:
means, responsive to reception of a call which does not include calling line information to a called party which does not accept calls which do not include calling line information, for requesting a caller of said call to speak his or her name, and for recording the spoken name; and
a personal call portal call unit;
said personal call portal unit comprising;
means for storing the recorded spoken name and for storing a link to information for said call;
means, responsive to a first type of request from a called party of said call, for providing the spoken name to said called party; and
means responsive to a second type of request from said called party for requesting establishment of said call using said link to said information for said call;
wherein said calling party has a private number and said call is established over said network without revealing said private number to said called party.
4. The personal call portal Unit of claim 3 , further comprising:
a file of name and call information for a plurality of calls to said called party; and
means, responsive to a third type of request from said called party, for providing names from said file for said called party; and
means responsive to a fourth type of request from said called party for requesting establishment of a call identified by any of the names in said file.
5. The personal call portal unit of claim 3 further comprising:
means, responsive to a fifth type of request from said called party, for connecting said called party to a call answering unit for storing messages from said caller of said call.