Voicemail is becoming an integral tool in everyday life for many people. Voicemail functionality comes free with most cellular telephone service, and is available as an add-on service for a small fee with traditional “plain old telephone service” (or “POTS”).
Voicemail has certain advantages and drawbacks in comparison to the previous automated telephone messaging solution, namely, answering machines. Voicemail digitally records the message, thus providing a relatively high fidelity recording of the voice of the caller and the ability of the message to be easily stored and manipulated with telephone commands from the home or using a remote dial-in number. Conversely, many less expensive answering machines less optimally use microcassette tapes for recording the messages, providing lesser quality recording and making saving and replaying messages out of order problematic. Additionally, voicemail does not require an investment into special hardware that can break, and operates even when the user's home power is out or when the user receives but does not answer a call waiting telephone call.
One of the major drawbacks regarding voicemail, however, is that generally speaking users must remember to check their messages on a regular basis to see if the voicemail network has received new messages. Voicemail systems offered by POTS service provide a distinguishable dial tone, called a “stutter tone,” if there are new voicemail messages when the user first picks up the telephone to place a call. With the proliferation of cellular telephones, however, users may infrequently utilize their home telephone to place outgoing calls, thus limiting their chances to notice the stutter tone. Furthermore, if only answering incoming telephone calls, a subscriber will not be given a chance to hear the stutter tone at all. While there are some telephone handsets that are adapted to detect the stutter tone automatically and provide a blinking light or other indication, these handsets require an investment in a new telephone by the subscriber. Thus, many voicemail subscribers are left with having to remember to pick up their telephone and listen for the stutter tone whenever they return home to check for new messages and oftentimes to not listen to the messages promptly.
Voice over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”) is a relatively new service that competes with POTS providers. VoIP, which may also be referred to as IP Telephony, Internet telephony, Broadband telephony, Broadband Phone and Voice over Broadband, is the routing of voice conversations over the Internet or through any other IP-based network. Starting in approximately 2004, mass-market VoIP services over broadband Internet access services began to be market to the general public. VoIP subscribers make and receive calls as they would over the traditional publicly switched telephone network. VoIP services have gained in popularity as they commonly offer service plans with unlimited calling to the U.S., and some to Canada or selected countries in Europe or Asia as well, for a flat monthly fee. Various VoIP service providers in the United States include, for example, Vonage, Verizon VoiceWing, AT&T CallVantage, SunRocket, Lingo, NetZero, BroadVoice, America Online, Packet8, and Earthlink.
In order to further entice consumers to switch to VoIP telephone services from POTS, VoIP service providers have been introducing various innovative features to further attract subscribers. Currently, for example, many VoIP service providers offer “smart” voicemail services for free with a standard service plan. Such smart voicemail is an improvement on the voicemail services offered in conjunction with traditional POTS services in that it takes advantage of the fact that all subscribers will have a connection to the Internet, and thus permits subscribers to access and interface with their respective mailboxes from anywhere over the Internet. Thus, subscribers still can access their smart voicemail box in the conventional dial-in manner with their telephone, but also can access and manage their voicemail messages through email accounts and online web interfaces.
For example, certain smart voicemail systems allow subscribers to access their voicemails through a web account and play them back through any Internet connected computer. Other smart voicemail systems provide subscribers with the option of having an email or instant message sent to the subscriber as a notification every time a new voicemail is received. Some services even provide subscribers with the further option of having the voicemail message attached as a digital audio file to the notification email actual message.
Understandably, these voicemail notification and access features offered by smart voicemail boxes are an improvement over the “stutter tones” used by traditional voicemail services. Nevertheless, they still require a user to check their computer for new emails or instant messages, which many persons may not find convenient. A voicemail subscriber that, for example, simply comes home and relaxes in front of the television for a few hours before heading off to bed, would have a high probability of not retrieving voicemail messages until they are stale.
Thus, there remains a need in the art for improved mechanisms for voicemail service subscribers to receive notifications of new voicemail messages. It would be advantageous if such systems and associated methods were capable of communicating new message notifications in a manner that would easily integrate into the daily life of the subscriber without requiring the subscriber to actively remember to check their voicemail. Further, it would be advantageous if such systems would also provide an improved interface for voicemail retrieval, review, and management by subscribers.