The continuous and explosive development of new computer and telecommunications technologies is very well known. For example, people use computers, telephones, and cellular phones daily in their work and/or daily life. As these technologies evolve, they begin to take on characteristics of one another. For example, the telephone is no longer, as in Meucci's time, a system that carries a voice from one end of the wire to another. Instead, it has become a multi-faceted apparatus capable of managing data as well as voice transmissions. As a result, telephones are now capable of connecting to the Internet, downloading e-mail, accessing chat rooms and so on. Some of the services that allow telephone users to better organize their work include call waiting, call transfer, call diversion, call forwarding, and call conferencing.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a prior art call-diversion telephone system (TS) 100. TS 100 typically includes one or more users 114 that communicate to a telephone company, though a fixed or portable telephone, an instruction to divert any incoming call from a caller 112 to a secondary number 118.
For example, during call diversion, the telephone company diverts incoming calls to user 114 to secondary telephone number 118. Accordingly, during call diversion, calls placed by incoming caller 112 to user 114 will be directly connected to derivative telephone 118, since the telephone company will have by-passed user 114.
The bi-passing of user 114 by the telephone company makes it difficult to provide on-line answering services. That is, by completely bi-passing user 114, the person answering derivative telephone number 118 may not have adequate information to properly respond to caller 112.
Accordingly, more advanced answering services are available in the prior art. FIG. 2 further illustrates the answering services available with prior art systems. For example, advanced telephone system (ATS) 200, provides a user 214 with the ability to request a telephone answering service from a provider 216. User 214 then proceeds to register for the service with 216 by means of creating an account.
During registration, user 214 is assigned one or more exclusive telephone numbers to which each user may transfer their incoming calls. Each user must be assigned an exclusive telephone number to which their calls will be forwarded. However, it is difficult for provider 216 and/or user 214 to predict the total number of telephone numbers needed. Moreover, as provider 216 provides services to more and more users 214, provider 216 will need even more telephone numbers to accommodate them. Currently many providers 216 request more telephone numbers than initially needed in order to provide for additional users 214. That is, a provider 216 may request 999 phone numbers, while provider 216 only has four hundred users 214. Moreover, upon customer turnover, provider 216 often cannot reassign the previous customer's numbers because of the confusion and problems caused by such reassignment. In addition, providers 216 often do not have adequate information about users 214 or the incoming callers when answering calls on behalf of users 214. Accordingly, there is a need for a service that provides on-line answering services that does not necessarily require a unique telephone number to which each user 214 must forward their calls. In addition, there is a need for a service that provides on-line, live, and/or voice messaging answering services that are uniquely responsive to the identity of each user 214 and the information provided by them.