WO1992022164A1

WO1992022164A1 - Hunt and seek telephone system

Info

Publication number: WO1992022164A1
Application number: PCT/US1992/004536
Authority: WO
Inventors: Mark S. Dye; Bertram P. Rosenthal
Original assignee: Auto Ex
Priority date: 1991-06-05
Filing date: 1992-06-01
Publication date: 1992-12-10
Also published as: AU2160392A

Abstract

Au automated telephone interactive message delivery device (10) is disclosed that implements a hunt and seek feature. When an incoming call is received, the device (10) will start dialing a series of pre-stored numbers in an attempt to reach the desired recipient of the incoming call. If the device (10) locates the desired recipient, the device (10) will connect the incoming caller on a first telephone line with the desired recipient on the second telephone line. Other features are included such as programming, incoming caller commands for selecting the desired recipient and call screening.

Description

HUNT AND SEEK TELEPHONE SYSTEM

Background of the Invention Field of the Invention

This invention relates to automated telephone equipment and more particularly relates to automated telephone equipment designed to locate a person being called.

Background of the Invention

Frequently, it is necessary to locate a person receiving a telephone call when that person (the desired recipient) is away from his or her telephone. Several techniques have been developed over the years to meet this demand such as the use of pagers, telephone answering machines, voice mail, cellular phones, call forwarding and answering services.

Each of these systems has drawbacks. Pagers frequently work only within limited areas. Also, they typically require human operators to signal the desired pager in response to a telephone call. Further, pagers do not allow for immediate conversation between the desired recipient of the page and the incoming caller requesting the page.

Telephone answering machines typically allow the caller to leave a message for the desired recipient. However, until the desired recipient activates the machine, either remotely or locally, the desired recipient does not know that he or she has been called.

Call forwarding will cause the incoming call to be forwarded to one other preselected telephone number. However, if the desired recip: =.nt may be at one of several different locations, th<^~ jail ay not reach the desired racipient. In addition, if t same phone line is used for servicing several different potential recipients such as may be common at a doctors' office, the incoming caller cannot select between several potential recipients for the call. Also, the desired recipient cannot alter the phone to which the call is forwarded.

Answering services, using human operators, may be able to reach the desired recipient at several different locations. However, these services tend to be expensive and are prone to errors.

Therefore, it is a first object of this invention to allow incoming calls to a telephone line to be forwarded to a series of preprogrammed, remotely programmable different telephone numbers until the desired recipient has been reached. It is a further object of this invention to allow the incoming caller to select between different series of preprogrammed telephone numbers. It is yet a still further object of this invention to allow the incoming caller to leave a message at any time during the attempt to locate the desired recipient.

Summary of the Invention

These and other objects of the invention are achieved by the disclosed automated telephone interactive message delivery device. The device comprises a central processing unit incorporating digital signal processing capabilities, a mass storage media such as floppy disks, memory, a local user interface for locally entering commands, and a plurality of pairs of DTMF decoders and coder decoders (Codecs) coupled to different telephone lines for processing telep one generated command signals and analog speech.

Through the local user interface of the device or the telephone lines, the desired recipients program one or more series of preselected telephone numbers to be stored at which they may be reached. One or more of the desired recipients may assign or reassign a priority for calling those numbers. When an incoming call is received on a first telephone line, the telephone interactive message delivery device may automatically select a stored list of telephone numbers for the phones where a desired recipient may be found. Alternatively, the device may select a stored list of telephone numbers based upon a signal transmitted over the telephone lines by the incoming caller, where the signal designates one of a plurality of potential recipients. The device seizes a second telephone line and dials the number with the highest priority in the selected list and waits for the desired recipient to enter a code number through the called telephone's keypad. At that point, the device will either connect the desired recipient with the incoming call or allow the desired recipient to screen the call.

Other features may be incorporated into the device such as remote programming by a desired recipient through DTMF signalling, hard disk storage, and timer control. In addition, the device may be able to record a message and a number from the incoming caller. Subsequently, the device can contact the desired recipient by a pager. Also, at a later time, the device can serially dial the numbers until the recipient is located and play back the recorded message to the recipient. During or after playing back the recorded message, the device may be signalled by the desired recipient to call the former incoming caller to establish a connection between the former incoming caller and that recipient.

Brief Description of the Drawings

Figure 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the disclosed invention.

Figure 2 is a flow chart of the basic hunt and seek process of the disclosed embodiment.

Detailed Description of the Preferred Embodiment

Figure 1 shows a block diagram of the preferred embodiment for the instant invention that implements the hunt and seek function. The hunt and seek function is used for locating a desired recipient of a telephone call at multiple potential sites for that recipient through the telephone lines.

The automated telephone interactive message delivery device 10 comprises a digital signal processor 20, such as a TMS 320C25 available from Texas Instruments, and associated memory including a RAM 22, a boot ROM 24, and mass storage media 26 such as twin floppy disk drives. The associated memory 22, 24 and 26 are connected to the processor 20 by a bus 28. Three different sources of a local user interface are provided through a telephone keypad 32, a two by forty touch sensitive LCD matrix display 34, a speaker 35 and an amplifier 37 for that speaker 35, and a microphone 36 and the amplifier 38 for the microphone 36. The other inputs and outputs for the digital signal processor 20 are telephone interface circuitry 40 coupled to the input output ports 21 of the processor 20. In the particular embodiment shown, the device is adapted to connect to up to eight telephone lines 50a-50h. However, the device 10 may be adapted to be connected to other numbers of telephone lines as long as at least one incoming and one outgoing telephone line is available. Remote commands may be signaled over the telephone line using the keypad on the phone (not shown) of the incoming caller. These remote signals may be translated into digital data by a DTMF (dial tone modulated frequency) signal processor circuit 52a through 52h. A Model CD 22204 DTMF signal processors available from Harris Semiconductor Corp. is an example of a suitable signal processor. Each incoming telephone line 50a through h is also coupled to a coder/decoder (codec) circuit 54a through h such as a 7510 available from AT&T. The codec circuits are used for converting received audio signals from the telephone lines 50a through h or from the microphone 36 into received digital data for the signal processor 20. Those same coder/decoder circuits (codecs) 54a through h are also used for converting transmit digital data from the processor into transmit audio signals for transmission over the telephone lines 50a through h. In addition, one of four time slice interchangers established in a gate array logic circuit 56a through d and controlled by the signal processor 20 may establish cross links between any of the telephone lines 50a through h. Optimally, there should be one time slice interchanger £5 for every two telephone lines. Each gate array logic circuit 56a through d also includes common telephone interfacing circuitry to couple the codecs 54a through h and the DTMF processors 52 to the telephone lines 50 and the processor 20. All received audio signals and all audio signals from the microphone 36 are sampled at a minimum rate of 8 KHz. The sampled data is compressed at a ratio of approximately 8 to 1 by a compression/decompression circuit 33 such as a Dallas Semiconductor DS 2158. In order for the digital signal processor 20 to function without another microcontroller, an operating system having a real time operating system kernel stored on the mass storage media 26 should be used.

The basic hunt and seek process will now be described in association with Figure 2. The telephone lines are continually scanned by the digital signal processor 20 for an incoming call 100. When an incoming call is detected 102, the processor 20 causes the device 10 to respond to the call by providing an off-hook indication to the telephone line associated with the incoming call. The processor then causes a recorded voice greeting message stored in a compressed format on mass storage media 26 to be decompressed by a compression/decompression circuit 33 and sent through the appropriate one of the Codec's 54a through 54h and over the telephone line to the incoming caller. That voice greeting message informs the caller that the device 10 is starting to seek the desired recipient for the incoming call. An exemplar of such a message might be as follows, assuming that Dr. Smith is the desired recipient:

"Dr. Smith is not at his office right now. Please hold the line while he is located." The device 10 locates on the disk a preselected stored list of telephone numbers 104 of potential sites where the desired recipient might be found. The hunting process starts with the seizure by the device 10 of a second telephone line for an outgoing call. The first outgoing call will be to the telephone number for the potential recipient site phone with the highest priority in that list 106, such as Dr. Smith's home. If the device 10 senses an off-hook condition (conversation state) from the second, seized telephone line at the first potential recipient site phone, the device will cause a delivery attempt message to be read from the mass storage media 26 and transmitted through the codec 54 over the second, seized telephone line. An example of such a delivery attempt message might be as follows:

"Hello, this is Dr. Smith's automated telephone attendant device. I have a call for Dr. Smith.

Please have Dr. Smith come to the telephone. If

Dr. Smith is not there, please hang-up."

While the first potential recipient site phone remains in the off-hook condition, the device 10 will wait for the entry of a recipient identification code.

If the desired recipient for the incoming call comes to the tele_.vnone, that recipient must enter, through the keypad of the first potential recipient site phone, a predetermined recipient identification code. Only then will the device 10 assume that the desired recipient of the incoming call has been found 108.

The processor 20 only assumes that the desired recipient has been found at the potential recipient site if recipient found certain conditions exist at the first potential recipient site. The phone must go into an off-hook condition within a certain time period; second, the desired recipient must enter a recipient code number within a predetermined period of time. If a certain predetermined number of rings have occurred at the first potential recipient site phone without that phone exhibiting an off-hook condition, the processor 20 assumes that no one is at the first potential recipient site phone. It will then terminate the call to the first potential recipient site phone. Also if the processor 20 determines that the first potential recipient site phone has returned to an on- hook condition after an of -hook condition, the device 10 will terminate the call to that first potential recipient site phone. Finally, if after a predetermined, programmable time period, such as two minutes, the intended recipient has not entered the identification code, the device 10 will terminate the call to the first potential recipient site phone. In addition, if a busy signal for the recipient site phone is detected, the processor 20 may later try dialing that site again if the recipient is not located at another phone first.

If the recipient has been found 110, the processor 20 will cause the time slice interchanger in the gate array logic circuit 56 to cross-link the phone lines for the incoming caller and the first recipient site. Once the phone lines are cross-linked by the time slice interchanger in the gate array logic circuit 56, the recipient and the incoming caller can exchange information by having an ordinary telephone conversation. The processor 20 occasionally monitors those two cross-linked phone lines to determine if either the phone for the incoming caller or the recipient has switched to exhibiting an on-hook condition. An on-hook condition means that the incoming caller and the recipient have terminated their conversation and the processor then places both phone lines in an on-hook condition.

If the recipient is not reached at the first potential recipient site phone 112, the device 10 will repeat the hunting process 114 by calling a second potential recipient site phone through the seized telephone line. Before calling the next recipient site, the device 10 may inform the incoming caller that the device is attempting to locate the desired recipient at another number. The number for the second potential recipient site phone will be the stored telephone number assigned the second highest priority on the stored list. The processor 20 decides that the recipient has been found at the phone for the second potential recipient site based upon the conditions described above. If the recipient is found, the processor 20 will cause the time slice interchanger in the gate array logic circuit 56 to cross-link the telephone lines.

If the recipient is not located at that second site, the device 10 will keep repeating the process by serially calling subsequent potential recipient site phones on the stored list in the order of their priority until the desired recipient has been found. If the designated recipient has not been reached after calling all of the numbers on the list 116, the device 10 will prompt the incoming caller to record a message 118 that is stored on the mass storage media 26 in a manner analogous to a common telephone answering machine or voice mail. The device 10 may also be programmed to restart the hunt and seek function for a back-up recipient if the desired recipient has not been located.

If a message is left, the device 10 may activate an automatic pager to alert the desired recipient that a message has been recorded. That pager may be included in the device 10 or may be reached via a communication channel such as a telephone line using DTMF signalling to a radio common carrier service. Upon receipt of a predetermined signal, the device 10 can then play back the receded message over the telephone line or through the speaker 35.

Yet another alternative that may be included in the program allows the device 10 to re-enter the hunt and seek function for contacting the desired recipient at a later time. Any one of several conditions may be used for initiating this delayed hunt and seek function including: (a) the recording of a predetermined, programmable number of messages; (b) a predetermined, programmable time period after the hunt and seek function failed to locate the desired recipient; and (c) a predetermined, programmable fixed time such as 10:00 a.m.

Instead of recording a message or if the desired recipient 10 fails to respond to the page, the device 10 may contact a back-up recipient. The back-up recipient may also be contacted through the hunt and seek function outlined in Figure 2.

The device 10 may receive additional incoming telephone calls while performing the hunt and seek function. These additional incoming calls are queued by the processor 20. Once the first incoming call has either been cross-linked to the desired recipient 110 or a message has been taken 118, the second call will be processed.

Several additional features may be added to the basic hunt and seek mode of operation described above. Upon receipt of the incoming call, the device 10 may prompt the incoming caller to enter his or her telephone number and to state his or her name and a brief message. The number may be entered by the incoming caller through the keypad of the telephone used by the incoming caller. If the connection is broken between the phone of the incoming caller and the device 10, the device can store the name and telephone number for the incoming caller on the mass storage media 26 for later recall as in a telephone answering machine or voice mail. Alternatively, the device 10 may automatically, or in response to a later DTMF prompt from the desired recipient, dial the number for that incoming caller to re-establish the connection to the phone for the incoming caller. In addition, after receiving the telephone number and the message from the incoming caller, the device 10 may direct the incoming caller to terminate the call. The device 10 can then perform the hunt and seek function to locate the desired recipient of the incoming call. Upon locating the desired recipient, the device 10 can play the recorded message from the incoming caller, and in response to a DTMF signal signaled through the keypad of the recipient site phone, dial the number entered by the incoming caller to establish a connection between the incoming caller and the desired recipient.

Where automatic caller identification is enabled, the device 10 may automatically store the telephone number for the phone of the incoming caller. The device 10 will also store a record of whether the incoming caller was successfully connected with the desired recipient. At a later time, the stored record of the telephone numbers for the incoming calls that were not connected may be displayed on the display 34 or printed by a printer (not shown) connected to the device 10 through a parallel Centronics type port (not shown) . In addition, all successfully connected incoming calls may also be recorded so that a complete record of all incoming phone calls may be obtained if desired. Further, it may be desirable for the incoming caller to select between different potential recipients. For example, in a family, the incoming caller may wish to reach one member of the family and not another member. In a medical practice setting, the incoming caller may want to reach a particular doctor and other doctors.

To allow the incoming caller to select the desired recipient, a different list of potential recipient site phone numbers should be stored on the mass storage media 26 for each potential recipient. The device 10 may prompt the incoming caller with a message such as the following:

"If you wish to reach Dr. Smith, please press 1. If you wish to reach Dr. Jones, please press 2."

Depending upon the number signaled by the incoming caller through the telephone keypad and transmitted over the telephone line as a DTMF signal, the device will then start calling the numbers for the selected, desired recipient from the appropriate stored list.

It has also been found di rable to prompt the incoming caller occasionally tc inform him that the device 10 is attempting to contact one of the desired recipients. A message should be stored on the mass storage media 26 for periodic playback to the incoming caller to inform him or her that the device 10 is attempting to reach the desired recipient.

It may also be desirable to allow the incoming caller to interrupt the hunt and seek function by entering a DTMF command that is sent through the telephone line to the device 10. The incoming caller may then leave a message that is recorded on the mass storage media 26 in a manner similar to a telephone answering device or voice mail. An occasional recorded message transmitted to the incoming caller while the hunt and seek process is being done should describe the keypad command to activate this message feature.

A further feature that may be included in the device 10 is a call screening function for the desired recipient. For example, the desired recipient may, upon being reached by the device 10, enter an additional digit after his recipient identification code, through the keypad of the potential recipient site phone. In response to that additional digit, the device 10 will transmit to the desired recipient information related to the call such as the name of the incoming caller and any message that the incoming caller gave. The desired recipient may then depress an additional digit so that the two phone lines will be cross-linked through the time slice interchanger in the gate array logic circuit 56 to permit a conversation with the incoming caller. Alternatively, the desired recipient can select another digit for the message from the incoming caller to be stored on the mass storage media 26. If the desired recipient selects the latter, the device will prompt the incoming caller to leave a message in a manner similar to voice mail.

The description of the hunt and seek function for the device 10 described above is of a non-transparent mode. In a non-transparent mode, the incoming caller is alerted to the operation of the device 10. However, a transparent mode may also be used. In the transparent mode, no greeting or other messages are sent to the incoming caller. The device 10 will merely enter the hunt and seek function as soon as the call has been received.

Additional features may also be included such as time sensitive features and artificial intelligence. For the time sensitive features a battery backed-up clock should be included. The device 10 can be designed to seek a first desired recipient or a first group of desired recipients for a first time period and a second group of desired recipients for a second time period. Thus, a doctors' office may have a first group of doctors on call at one time and another group of doctors on call at another time. The device 10 may automatically refrain from calling office telephone numbers late at night or call additional numbers such as the home telephone number for recipient at late hours. The device 10 may also alter 'he priorities of the numbers to be called such as calling a home number first late at night. Further, the greeting message may be switched based upon the time of day.

The device 10 can also operate to readjust the priority for the telephone numbers and queuing of calls based upon recent events. Similarly, the device 10 can also track the historical record of the sites where the desired recipient is most likely to be found at given times and use that historical record in assigning priorities for calling potential recipient sites. Second, if the desired recipient for an incoming call is currently involved in a telephone conversation through phone lines cross-linked by the time slice interchanger in the gate array logic circuit 56, the device 10 can provide call waiting. In call waiting, the desired recipient is alerted to the second incoming call. The recipient may temporarily through DTMF signalling or briefly activating the off-hook switch, initiate a conversation with the second incoming caller. Alternatively, the device 10 can record a message from the second incoming caller or the device 10 can connect the incoming caller with a back-up recipient. Thus, the device 10 will not waste time trying to hunt a desired recipient already involved in a conversation.

The operation of the local user interface will now be described. When the device 10 is first turned on, a menu will appear on the touch sensitive display 34 prompting the person programming the machine through the interface to activate either the hunt and seek mode or a programming mode. After entry of the appropriate command oh the display 34, the device 10 will enter the program mode and prompt the programmer to enter the names of the desired recipients through the touch sensitive LCD display 34. The programmer will also be prompted to enter a list of the telephone numbers for each potential site of each potential desired recipient. Telephone numbers may be entered through the keypad 32. The programmer will assign priorities to each number on each list and may designate back-up recipients in case a given recipient cannot be located during the hunt and seek function. The entered list of numbers of potential sites for that desired recipient will be stored on the mass storage media 26.

In addition, the programmer will be prompted to enter the needed voice messages through a microphone 36 coupled to the device 10. The analog signals from the microphone 36 are amplified at the amplifier 38 and translated into digital signals by the codec 54a for compression by the processor 20. The compressed messages are stored on the mass storage media 26. After completing the entry of telephone numbers of the potential desired recipients or after skipping the programming mode, the desired recipient may cause the device 10 to enter into the hunt and seek mode. Upon entering the hunt and seek mode, the device 10 will first prompt the programmer to select the potential desired recipient or potential desired recipients who are to be sought. Additional choices may also be provided for the maximum number of rings at the potential recipient site phones before assuming that the desired recipient is not present, the maximum time to wait for the entry of the recipient identification number before disconnecting to try the next potential recipient site phone number, the back-up recipient etc. After making the appropriate entries, if any, the device 10 will respond to all incoming calls by the hunt and seek process described above.

In addition to the local entry of numbers and priorities through the keypad, a desired recipient may edit the list of numbers and the priorities through remote DTMF signalling over the telephone line. When a desired recipient makes an incoming telephone call, the recipient enters an identification code that causes the device 10 to prompt the recipient to add or delete telephone numbers to his list and to alter the priorities of numbers. Also, the desired recipient can use DTMF signalling to remove him or herself from the list of desired recipients.

Other features may be added by changing the program stored on the media. The device 10 may allow, after establishing a cross-link between the desired recipient and the incoming caller, to add third parties to the call by DTMF signalling. Included in this third party capability may be the use of the unt and seek function to reach the third party if t « numbers for that third party have been stored on the mass storage media 26. If a message has been recorded from an incoming caller, a desired recipient may also be able to use the hunt and seek function to reach another potential desired recipient and allow that recipient to hear the recorded message.

The features of this invention may be used in any architecture of connectivity including in a home telephone device, in a private branch exchange, or at the master switch. Other modifications of the device 10 may include an integrated telephone, hard disk or semiconductor mass storage, parallel or serial ports for connections to computers, reverse mail boxes, digital facsimile storage, automatic telephone number identification, rotary to DTMF signal conversion, voice and electronic mail, text to voice conversion for transmission of facsimiles and electronic mail to ordinary telephone receivers, and an intercom. A battery back-up recharged with a trickle charger such as is common in uninterruptible power supplies may also be used. It will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that many other features may be combined with the features described above. Of course, the scope of the invention is defined by the following claims.

Claims

We c laim:

1. A telephone interactive message delivery apparatus for transmitting information related to an incoming call from an incoming caller on a first telephone line to at least a first desired recipient at one of a plurality of different possible potential recipient site phones through the telephone network, each of the different possible sites having a telephone number, the apparatus comprising: means for storing the telephone numbers of the potential recipient sites; means for receiving the incoming call from the first telephone line; programmatic hunting means for dialing the different numbers of different possible potential recipient site phones serially until at least one recipient found condition has been met; means for transmitting information to the last dialed desired recipient site phone through the network once at least one condition has been met.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the means for transmitting information includes cross-linking means for connecting the first line to a second line connected to the last dialed desired recipient site phone.

3. The hunt and seek apparatus of claim 1, wherein the means for receiving the incoming call includes means for recording information provided by the incoming caller over the first telephone line; and wherein the means for transmitting information comprises means for transmitting the recorded information through the network to the last dialed phone once said at least one condition has been met.

4. The hunt and seek apparatus of claim 3, wherein the means for transmitting further includes means responsive to a signal sent over a second line by the desired recipient for cross-linking the first line to a line connected to the last dialed phone after transmission of the recorded information.

5. The hunt and seek apparatus of claim 3, wherein the hunting means includes means for initiating the programmatic hunt after the recording of information.

6. The hunt and seek apparatus of claim 1, wherein the hunting means includes means immediately responsive to the receipt of an incoming call for initiating the dialing of the stored numbers.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 further including: a memory storing data, the data altering the operation of the programmatic hunting means; a means for manually entering data in the memory, the data including at least one of the group comprised of (a) the phone numbers to be dialed, (b) at least one initiation condition that will cause the hunt means to be activated to dial at least some of the stored numbers, (c) priorities for the sequence of dialing of the phone numbers, (d) whether the incoming caller may select between a plurality of desired recipients, and (e) whether the transmitting means will cross-link telephone lines.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein there may be a plurality of recipients located at a plurality of different locations having telephone numbers and the incoming caller may provide different incoming signals over the first telephone line, wherein the apparatus comprises: means for detecting which incoming signal has been transmitted over the first telephone line by the incoming caller; and means for selecting the numbers to dial based upon the incoming signal.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the recipient found condition comprises at least one of the following: the potential recipient site phone is in an off- hook condition; and the recipient sends an identification code to the apparatus over the second telephone line within a predetermined time period.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the apparatus further includes: means for halting the hunting means from dialing in response to a certain predetermined signal sent by the incoming caller over the telephone line; and means for recording a message from the incoming caller for later playback after halting the hunting means.

11. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the apparatus further includes means for automatically starting the hunt means to dial numbers in response to a condition other than the receipt of an incoming call.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the means for automatically starting the hunting means to dial numbers is programmable to automatically start in response to at least one of the group comprised of a programmable period after receipt of an incoming call where the recipient found condition was not detected, recording of a programmable number of messages, and a programmable time.

13. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the apparatus further includes: means to alter the operation of the hunting means in response to a signal; and programming means activated subsequent to the altering means for modifying at least one of the list of telephone numbers and the priorities of dialing the numbers.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the programming means further includes at least one of the group comprised of a local means for entry of data and remote means responsive to signals sent over the telephone line for entry of data.

15. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the apparatus further includes: means for receiving and recording information related to the incoming call; means responsive to a signal sent over the second telephone line by the recipient for sending the message to the recipient; and means responsive to an additional signal sent over the telephone line by the recipient for the cross- linking means to connect the two lines.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the apparatus further includes: means responsive to the end of the message from the incoming caller for disconnecting the apparatus *5 from the first line.

17. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the hunting means includes a processing unit and the means for transmitting information includes a time slice interchanger controlled by the processing unit.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein each line has a remote receiver that may exhibit either an on- hook or an off-hook condition over the telephone lines, wherein the apparatus exhibits either an on-hook 5 or an off-hook condition for each line and wherein the processing unit monitors any of the lines cross-linked by the time slice interchanger to determine if the receiver have returned to exhibiting an on-hook condition and 0 the processing unit causes an on-hook condition to be exhibited to any line cross-linked to any line having a receiver that returned to an on-hook condition.

19. The apparatus of claim 2 further including: means for determining if a cross-link for an incoming call to a desired recipient currently exists; and 5 means for preventing the hunt and seek means from hunting said desired recipient in response to a second incoming call while said cross-link exists.

20. The apparatus of claim 19 further including at least one of means for notifying the desired recipient of a second incoming call by transmitting a signal while the cross-link exists and means for recording a message from the incoming caller on the second call.

21. The apparatus of claim 1 further including means for recalling a most recent recipient site telephone number, wherein the most recent recipient site telephone number being the last number dialed before the at least one recipient found condition existed; and means for causing the hunting means to dial a specific one of the listed numbers based upon the most recent recipient site number before dialing any of the other numbers stored for that recipient.

22. A method for transmitting information related to an incoming call placed by an incoming caller on a first telephone line to at least one desired recipient who may be at one of a plurality of different, stored telephone numbers over a telephone line, the method comprising: receiving the incoming call; automatically serially dialing each of the stored telephone numbers after receipt of the incoming call until at least a first recipient found condition has been met; and transmitting the information over a telephone line after at least the first condition has been met.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the recipient found conditions that have to be met comprise: an off-hook phone condition followed by the signalling of an identification number over the second * 5 telephone line within a predetermined time period.

24. The method of claim 22, wherein each of the telephone numbers has been assigned a priority; and wherein the serial dialing is done is from the number with the highest priority to the lowest 5 priority.

25. The method of clrim 22, wherein the method further comprises: entering the telephone numbers into a memory through one of a local data entry terminal or through 5 signalling over the telephone line by the recipient.

26. The method of claim 22, wherein the method may be used for seeking one of a plurality of recipients at a plurality of different telephone numbers, the transmitting step further comprising:

5 after receipt of the incoming call, sending a message over the telephone line to the incoming caller to designate which of the recipients he wishes to reach; and in response to a signal transmitted by the 10 incoming caller choosing a group of telephone numbers for the automatic dialing.

27. The me od of claim 22, wherein the step of transmitting information includes establish ig a cross¬ link between the incoming call on the first telephone line and the desired recipient on the second telephone

5 line.

28. The method of claim 22, wherein the step of receiving the incoming call includes recording information about the first call; and wherein th-*^*-. step of transmitting includes: transmitting the recorded information and afterwards cross-linking the line to the incoming caller to the line connected to the desired recipient in response to a signal transmitted over the line by the desired recipient.

29. The method of claim 22, wherein the step of transmitting information to the desired recipient further includes: responding to a signal sent by the desired recipient by automatically dialing a second list of stored telephone numbers until at least a condition has been met indicating a second potential recipient has been located; and transmitting at least some of the same information received by the first recipient to the second recipient.

30. The method of claim 29, wherein the step of transmitting at least some of the same information includes creating a three way phone conversation between the incoming caller and the first and second recipients.

31. The method of claim 29, wherein the step of receiving the call includes recording information about the call and the step of transmitting includes transmitting at least some of the recorded information to the second recipient.

32. An apparatus for locating at least one potential desired recipient of an incoming transmission on a plurality of communication channels, wherein each recipient has a unique identification code and may be

- 5 located at a plurality of different sites, each site having a transceiver activated in response to a unique identifier, the apparatus comprising: memory storing the list of unique identifiers for each recipient; 10 a DTMF processor coupled to each channel; a coder decoder (codec) including an analog to digital and digital to analog converter coupled to each channel; a processor programmatically controlled and 15 coupled to each signal decoder and codec, wherein the programmatic control includes the following steps:

(a) receiving an incoming transmission on a first channel;

(b) sequentially transmitting the ider iifier for 20 each potential recipient sites until the identifier code has been detected; and

(c) upon receipt of the code, establishing a cross-link between the first and second channels to permit two way coaaaunications.

33. The apparatus of claim 31, wherein the DTMF processor decodes coded signals transmitted over the communications channel; and the sequence of steps of the program is altered in 5 response to preselected coded signals.

34. The apparatus of claim 31, wherein the programmatic control further includes:

(d) receipt by the DTMF processor of coded signalling of the identifier of the transceiver for the incoming call; and

(e) termination of the incoming call after receipt of the identifier and before the initiation of the sequential transmitting of identifier codes.