The invention relates to communication systems. More particularly, the invention relates to a method and apparatus for providing a calling number identifier alias in a communications system.
Some telephone communications systems, such as the Wireless Office Service (WOS) communications system offered by ATandT, let a subscriber use a wireless telephone, such as a cellular phone, interchangeably with a wired telephone. The wireless telephone and the wired telephone have a fixed correspondence and the service can be configured to have the wireless telephone act as a subscriber""s wired telephone. Both the wireless telephone number and the wired telephone number are associated with the subscriber by the service. In a WOS communication system, the wired telephone is generally coupled directly to a Private Branch Exchange (PBX), while the wireless telephone is coupled directly to a wireless switch.
Because many WOS subscribers use their wireless telephone as their office telephone while both in and out of their office, they configure the PBX such that an incoming call placed to the wired telephone will be automatically delivered to the wireless telephone. Thus, many WOS subscribers associate a single telephone number with both the wired telephone and the wireless telephone. Moreover, a person who contacts a subscriber, such as a customer, will also associate the single telephone number with both the wired telephone and the wireless telephone. To avoid confusion, a subscriber may xe2x80x9cpublishxe2x80x9d only the single telephone number on business cards, advertisements and the like. Some subscribers may keep the wireless telephone number private for other reasons, such as to reserve the number for use in emergency situations.
A problem arises, however, when a subscriber uses the wireless phone to call a party who uses a Calling Number Identifier (CNI) system, also known as xe2x80x9ccaller ID,xe2x80x9d which displays the telephone number of the calling party. This is generally done by having a terminating Local Exchange Carrier (LEC) switch recognize that a call is being placed to a caller ID subscriber. The terminating switch can optionally send a query to a name database which sends back a name associated with the calling party number. The terminating switch provides the calling party number, and optionally the name of the calling party, to the receiving phone.
When a subscriber makes a telephone call from the wired telephone, the PBX typically uses published telephone number as the CNI. When a subscriber makes a telephone call from the wireless telephone, the wireless switch uses the Mobile Identification Number (MIN) of the wireless phone as the CNI. In this case, the called party will not see the familiar telephone number of the subscriber""s wired telephone, but instead will see a number associated with the subscriber""s wireless telephone. This might confuse the called party as to who is really calling them, and the party may not even answer the unidentifiable call.
The disadvantages of the art are alleviated to a great extent by the method and apparatus to provide a CNI alias in a communications system having a wireless telephone associated with a wired telephone number, such as a WOS communications system. When a telephone call is placed from the wireless telephone, an alias database is searched to determine the associated wired telephone number. The telephone number of the wired telephone is used as an alias for the purpose of the CNI.
In one embodiment of the present invention, a wireless switch coupled to a communications network is configured to route a telephone call from a wireless telephone to the communications network. A Service Control Point (SCP) is coupled to the wireless switch and is also coupled to an alias database that associates a MIN representing the wireless telephone with a telephone number representing a wired telephone. The SCP uses the telephone number of the wired telephone as the a CNI alias for the call from the wireless telephone.
With these and other advantages and features of the invention that will become hereinafter apparent, the nature of the invention may be more clearly understood by reference to the following detailed description of the invention, the appended claims and to the several drawings attached herein.
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