Voice mail system

Sunday, 07 January 2007

Voice mail systems are voice messaging systems designed to perform telephone call answering and message handling services. Voicemail is a widely used and increasingly popular means of communication. Voicemail systems provide many features that facilitate sending and receiving voice messages. A voice mail system (VMS) provides a voice mailbox that allows an inbound voice message to be stored when the user is away from the receiving telephone or in the event a busy signal is encountered by a caller, so that the recipient can learn of the call. The caller may also choose to leave a message directly in the voice mailbox of the recipient of the call when a "live call" is not necessary or desired. Most voicemail systems record messages if the called party's phone line is either in use or does not answer. In either case, the voicemail system answers the phone call and records the message. Typically, the message is digitized and stored on a computer hard disk for later playback by the called party. The digitized voice is compressed and stored on a hard disk that maintains the voice mail operating system, system prompts, and greetings, and the messages themselves. A processor controls the compressing, storing, retrieving, forwarding and purging of files. In addition to simply leaving voicemail messages for others, users of existing voicemail systems can use telephones, wireless devices, or even personal computers from virtually any location to check for messages left by others. Voice mail has become commonplace not only in business usage but also on an individual telephone service subscriber basis through service from a central office. Voice mail systems provide advantages in that they allow calling parties and called parties to communicate without establishing a call connection between the two parties. It is well known to provide voice mail capabilities in a wired telephone network. It is also known to provide such capabilities in connection with a wireless telephone network. Computer voice mail systems provide consumers with increased flexibility over their telephone answering machine counterparts. The increasing speed and storage capacity of personal computers enables these machines to record longer messages and store far more messages than conventional telephone answering machines.

A voice mail system is generally implemented either on special purpose computer hardware, or else on a standard computer workstation equipped with a suitable telephony interface. A typical voicemail system routes a caller to a voicemail box after the called extension has been rung a predetermined number of times. The caller may then leave a voice message that is placed in a voicemail box associated with the called extension for subsequent retrieval by the called party. Voice mail systems also often provide for such functions as forwarding of voicemail messages to other voicemail boxes on the voicemail system or broadcasting of a voice message to a predetermined range or list of voicemail boxes on the voicemail system. A voice mail system typically includes a storage device and logic that causes messages to be stored on the storage device. Subscribers may desire to access the messages remotely and may do so by calling the voice messaging system and accessing the subscriber's respective account. By alleviating the need and expense of a separate telephone answering machine, the use of a personal computer to record voice mail messages over a telephone line allows consumers to save money. Generally, a voice mail system is connected to a switching system as an independent device. Telecommunication networks include circuit-switched networks and packet-switched networks to transport voice and data between remote end users. The circuit-switched networks utilize transmission paths dedicated to specific users for the duration of a call and employ continuous, fixed bandwidth transmission. The packet-switched networks allow dynamic bandwidth, and can be connectionless networks with no dedicated path or connection-oriented networks with virtual circuits having dedicated bandwidth along a predetermined path. Because packet-switched networks allow traffic from multiple users to share communication links, these networks use available bandwidth more efficiently than circuit-switched networks. Internet protocol (IP) networks are connectionless packet-switched networks that break up streams of information into addressable packets. Each IP packet includes source and destination addresses and can take any available route between the source and destination. The IP packets are transmitted independently and then reassembled in the proper sequence at the destination. Internet protocol (IP) based telephones are gaining popularity. In IP networks, voice mail systems are used to record an audio message from a calling party for an absent, busy or otherwise unavailable called party. Many voice messaging systems may be coupled to a business phone system such as a private branch exchange (PBX), allowing for messages to various subscribers of the business phone system to be stored for those subscribers when they are unavailable or otherwise unable to answer incoming telephone calls. Use of a PBX can provide more efficient access to multiple telephone lines and allows for local, centralized control of telecommunications services. In addition, a private branch exchange generally provides numerous features and services that can be tailored to the needs of each particular organization. The voice mail systems typically provide a voicemail box that is associated with a particular telephone line or extension number (extension) on the PBX system. A typical PBX, for example, is connected to a voice mail system and provides for the necessary processing and switching to support voice mail services. A voice mail system may be located in the same facilities as the business telephone system and thus provide local users access to voice messaging. Alternatively, voice messaging capability may be provided, for example, in conjunction with the local telephone system. When using an assigned telephone which is directly connected to the telephonic voice mail messaging system, the user can generally access the telephonic voice mail messaging system by simply entering his or her mail box number or password. Alternatively, a user may access the telephonic voice mail messaging system from an external or "outside" telephone by dialing into the system from the external telephone and then entering his or her mailbox number and password. A voice mail system network may include various voicemail systems that service particular facilities or groups within the organization be networked so that the various voice mail systems throughout the organization can be accessible to a user as if each voicemail box was on the same voice mail system. Each voice mail system on the network must be configured to know and recognize the configurations of each of the other voice mail systems on the voice mail system network. Voicemail system networks may include up to several hundred voicemail systems on the same voicemail system network. Network-based voice mail service has become commonplace in business environments and is becoming an increasingly popular alternative to answering machines for residential telephone customers.

Voice mail systems (VMS) enable a subscriber to receive messages when the subscriber is unable to take a telephone call. Voice mail systems offer users the ability to record a personalized voice message, listen to voice mail messages from a remote location, save messages, reply to messages, forward messages to one or more other mailboxes in the system with or without introductory messages, define and use mailbox groups, and review saved messages. In addition, some systems offer users the ability to forward incoming calls directly to a specified voice mail box or forward incoming calls to another phone number. Many voice mail systems today provide some information about the call with the stored audio signal. This voice mail identification is normally associated with the telephone number of the voice mail subscriber. Telephonic voice mail messaging systems allow a user of the telephonic voice mail messaging system to record and retrieve messages over an analog telephonic voice line. When a caller calls an intended recipient who is a subscriber to such a system, and the recipient does not answer the telephone, the caller is transferred automatically to the voice mail system. The voice mail system enables the caller to record a message for the subscriber in the caller's own voice, which the voice mail system stores in digital form. Many voice mail systems give the caller the opportunity to review, then save, delete or replace the current message. A VMS allows a recipient of an internal call to listen to a message stored in his or her voice mailbox and, by operating the keys on a telephone keypad, to initiate a reply to the message. When the recipient calls the voice mail system, the voice mail system notifies the recipient of any stored messages, and enables the recipient to listen to the stored messages. Many voice mail systems enable the recipient to replay, delete or archive messages. Some voice mail messaging systems allow a user to send a voice mail message out to a group of persons by designing a customized list and directing the voice mail messaging system to send the voice mail message out to all persons on the list. Voice messaging also allows internal communication from one caller to multiple recipients on the same VMS system without the caller initiating a call to each individual recipient's voice mailbox.

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