Telephone system with subscriber selected audio and image announcements

Claim 1

A telephone network system for switching audio and image announcements of a network subscriber into a call originating from a local telephone station through a switched network comprising switch means for forwarding the call made from a calling party to the network subscriber, said network subscriber being located at the premises location separate from the switched network, network control means associated with said switch means for controlling the routing of the call through said switch means, network announcement means operatively connected to said switch means for generating the audio and image announcements, and means for switching said call originating from said calling party into said network announcement means for receipt of the audio and image announcements, call routing management means located at the premises location of the network subscriber and interfaced with said network control means for determining routing logic of the call through said switch means as a function of different calling parameters, said call routing management means including, announcement management means associated with said call routing management means, said announcement management means including means for storing said audio and image announcements for transfer at a later time to said network announcement means for storage therein, said announcement management means including means for accessing the network announcement means and transmitting stored said audio and image announcements to said network announcement means, wherein the network subscriber may select the audio and image announcements to be received by the calling party from said network announcement means.

Claim 11

A method of routing audio and image announcements to a local telephone station of a calling party comprising the steps of storing within an announcement manager located at a premises location of a network subscriber the audio and image announcements, transferring from the announcement manager said audio and image announcements at a later time to a network announcement facility that is associated with a telephone network switch system for storage therein, forwarding a call made from the local telephone station to the telephone network switch system, determining routing logic of the call within a call routing manager located at the premises location of the network subscriber by querying a network control system and routing the call through the telephone network switch system based on different calling parameters, while switching the call to the network announcement facility while generating to the calling party said audio and image announcements announcement that are preselected by the network subscriber.

Claim 12

A method of routing audio and image announcements to a local telephone station of a calling party comprising the steps of storing within an announcement manager located at a premises location of a network subscriber the audio and image announcements, transferring from the announcement manager said audio and image announcements at a later time to a network announcement facility that is associated with a telephone network switch system for storage therein, forwarding a call made from the local telephone station to the telephone network switch system, determining routing logic of the call within a call routing manager located at the premises location of the network subscriber by querying a network control system and routing the call through the telephone network switch system based on different calling parameters, while switching the call to the network announcement facility while generating to the calling party said audio and image announcements announcement that are preselected by the network subscriber.