In simpler times, communication meant a face to face conversation, a hand written note or, perhaps, a phone call between two land lines. Times have changed. People today communicate constantly and simultaneously via myriad channels, most of which are mobile. Of all the means of communication available to today's users, the cellular telephone may be the most ubiquitous. It seems that everybody has one and that everybody uses their mobile device to stay connected, keep their busy lives moving forward, and fulfill their endless responsibilities.
For many people, those endless responsibilities are of a personal and professional mix. Fielding phone calls and texts from family and friends on the same mobile device from which you endeavor to conduct business is a recipe for confusion. When taking a call from your top client, it's probably a good idea to avoid getting it mixed up with a call from your spouse. The greeting “Hey, Honey!” can undermine even the best of business relationships.
To keep the personal and business channels of communication separated, many people simply carry two separate mobile devices, each with its own dedicated phone number and service options. If mobile device “A” rings, the user knows it's of a personal nature. If mobile device “B” rings, the user knows that it's a business related call. Although carrying two mobile devices with you is one solution for keeping personal and business demands separate, keeping track of two mobile devices and their related service plans, however, can be frustrating and expensive.
For many users, porting a second phone number to a single device makes more sense—in doing so, at least the number of devices that must be kept up with in order to keep personal and business matters segregated have been reduced. But current systems and methods for managing multiple numbers on a single device are not without issues. For example, adding a second line to a service plan often dictates that the user have a more expensive “family plan” established with the service provider and often there still is no good way to know which number a calling party has dialed. Using a dual-SIM (“subscriber identity module”) phone is another solution, with each SIM card being dedicated to a separate line, but the cost of redundant service plans to accommodate the multiple SIM cards, not to mention the cost of the dual-SIM phone itself, can be exorbitant.
Another solution is to offer a second line number in the form of a virtual number. Calls to the virtual number are intercepted and forwarded to the primary number of a subscriber's mobile device. To distinguish that the incoming call was originally directed to the virtual number as opposed to the primary number associated with the device, virtual number services known in the art simply populate a calling party field with the virtual number. The user sees the virtual number on the caller ID display and knows that the incoming call was made to the virtual number. If the virtual number is being used for a business venture, for example, seeing the virtual number on the caller ID display prompts the user to answer the call with an appropriate greeting. Notably, however, in some virtual number services the user of the virtual number service has no way of identifying the source of the incoming call—he can only know that the incoming call was made to the virtual number.
In other virtual number services, the problem of identifying the call as an incoming call to the virtual number without sacrificing the ability to also know the source of the incoming call is solved with the addition of a dialable prefix to the incoming call identification (e.g., 88*770.283.5555). Notably, however, to provide such a solution the virtual number service must work in cooperation with the subscriber's primary service provider so that the dialable prefix is acknowledged as a trigger to forward the incoming call to the subscriber's device.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method for providing a plurality of dedicated phone numbers to a single telecommunications device in such a manner that the user of the device can separate and manage communications on each. Further, what is needed is a system and method for providing a second line service to a device in such a manner that only a single primary phone number is required from the device's primary service provider. Even further, what is needed is a system and method for providing a second line service to a device in such a manner that the second line service can be provided to the subscriber without having to coordinate with the subscriber's primary service provider.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds