Families and home-based businesses are faced with increasing choices associated with communication services and devices. While costs for individual services and devices have generally declined in price, when bundled together the cost per household for basic communication services has actually increased in recent decades. With this revolutionary new product—SIP Family Phone--residential users and home-based business owners can have all the benefits that a business PBX provides at affordable prices. For our cable, broadband and private label partners, this innovation expands revenues opportunity for multi-play and value-added services. Here’s how it works:
When a call comes to the system, the system plays a message: “Thank you for calling the Brown household. Please press one for Mary, two for Jim, three for Jerry or press zero to reach anybody in the household.” SIP Family Phone provides up to five extensions.
Distinctive ringing innovation. Based on which number is pressed, different ringing is sent to the phone(s). For example, one might be a single long ring (identical to what phone does today), for two it will be two shorter rings, for three – three, etc. While many analog phones in use today support some ringing notification processes, SIP Family Phone's ringing notification is distinct and innovative.
Auto-CallBlastingand notification. Assume Mary is at home and wants to call Jim who is not. She would probably dial his cell phone number. With the innovation of SIP Family Phone, Mary could dial Jim’s extension (“2” in the example given) and the call would be forwarded to Jim’s cell phone. This provides the automatic functionality similar to the phone book and/or speed dial, but without an actual need to create one.
Private voicemail box. Each member of the household will receive their own private voicemail. The system can set home phone service in a way that voicemail can also be delivered to the called party’s personal cell phone or another answering device.
Call Waiting innovation. For those who have traditional call waiting features, they may receive an incoming call while they are talking on another call. The current options are: ignore it, take it and ask to call back, offer apologies and switch to another line. Often times this is a call intended for somebody else in the same household. With SIP Family Phone, the specific person for whom the call is intended will be able to answer the call on a cell phone or other answering device—like their computer--without interruption of the conversation going on with the original called party.
Call Screening. Most people do not like different unsolicited calls, like polls, request for donations, etc. Most call centers initiate these calls by using predictive dialers. With SIP Family Phone, an auto dialer will generate a prompt that will terminate the call.