A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, a communication device having a controller to retrieve from an address book a communication identifier for each of a plurality of participants, determine from the address book a conferencing type for each of the plurality of participants, and initiate according to the conference type and the communication identifier of each participant a Voice over Internet Protocol conference call directed to communication devices of the plurality of participants. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Methods, systems, and products provide contextual information for communications. A call, for example, is processed from an origination address to a destination address. A query is made for a brand of device associated with the origination address making the call. The brand of device is announced during the call.

Systems and methods for dynamically assigning an Automatic Number Identification (ANI) to a device deployed in a controlled-environment facility. In an illustrative, non-limiting embodiment, a system may include: a processor; and a memory coupled to the processor, the memory having program instructions stored thereon that, upon execution by the processor, cause the system to: receive a request to facilitate a communication between a resident of a controlled-environment facility and a non-resident of the controlled-environment facility, where the resident operates a device lacking a dedicated ANI; and assign a temporary ANI to the resident's device, where the temporary ANI is different from any other ANI being used by any other device in the controlled-environment facility concurrently with the communication.

In an example embodiment, a solution is provided that decouples an IVR component from a voice media server, which allows the voice media server to be geographically placed in a location most beneficial to keep digital voice file transmission to a minimum (thus saving bandwidth), while allowing the IVR component to be geographically located anywhere without negatively impacting the bandwidth usage. An additional benefit is that by decoupling the IVR component from the voice media server, the IVR component can be implemented in a way that lets it work with multiple redundant voice media servers simultaneously, allowing one of the voice media servers to become unavailable without impacting service.

A computing device is described that includes one or more processors and at least one module operable by the processors to output, for display, first information for an event, and, responsive to determining that a user of the computing device has viewed a display device of the computing device for at least a threshold amount of time, output, for display, second information for the event, the second information including information associated with the event and not included in the first information. The module is further operable to, responsive to determining that the user of the computing device has viewed the display device for at least another threshold amount of time greater than the first threshold amount of time, output, for display, third information for the event, the third information including additional information associated with the event and not included in the first information or the second information.

A telephone call to a remote party may encounter a number of abnormal conditions, which prevents the call from being offered to the remote party's interface. These conditions may be indicated to the calling party using call progress information conveyed as out-of-band information, in the form of signaling elements and/or as in-band information, in the form of audio information. The audio information may include a special information tone and/or an intercept announcement. The call handler originating the outbound call may provide the audio information to a speech analytics component that analyzes the audio information. The analyzed audio information may be reconciled with the out-of-band information. Various rules can be applied to ascertain how to disposition the call in instances where the in-band and out-of-information are inconsistent. Once reconciled, accurate call disposition information can be recorded in the call record for that call.

At a mobile communications device, a communication is received from a communication source. An indication of an environment type associated with the communication source is obtained, and a check is made as to whether the indication of the environment type associated with the communication source matches a current environment type of the mobile communications device. An initial notification (and optionally a leave-behind notification) of the communication is presented only if the indication of the environment type associated with the communication source matches the current environment type of the mobile communications device.

A method and security system arrangement are disclosed for processing incoming signals at an alarm monitoring station. The method includes analyzing the incoming signals to assess if any particular incoming signal includes characteristics of a facsimile signal to thereby identify whether or not a given incoming signal is a facsimile signal. If the analyzing identifies that a given incoming signal includes characteristics of a facsimile signal, thus identifying that the given incoming signal is likely a facsimile signal, the alarm monitoring station refrains from initiating an alarm handling procedure to handle the given incoming signal. Caller ID information may be extracted from the facsimile signals received by the alarm monitoring station, and added to a call block list. Calls originating from caller IDs on the call block list may be blocked by the alarm monitoring station.

Answering machine detection (AMD) processes in a contact center is used to derive and store AMD meta-data about a known greeting from an automatic voice messaging capability (AVMC) on a telephone call to a known number. The AMD meta-data is used in subsequent calls to that known number wherein the greeting detected is analyzed using the AMD meta-data to make a comparison if the current greeting is the same of that previously encountered. If the current greeting is the same as previously encountered, this suggests the number has not been reassigned. If different, this suggests the number was reassigned. If the distinction is not clear, then the agent may perform a manual comparison of the audio speech and/or a transaction of the greeting. If the number is reassigned, then a number validation for the intended individual can be performed to verify whether the number was reassigned.

A request is received from a user of a telephonic device to invoke an application on the telephonic device. A form is displayed to the user using the application. Information input into the form is received by the application along with an indication to submit the form information with a service request to a call handling system. A data communications session between the telephonic device and an application server of the call handling system is established using the application. The form information is provided to the application server. A telephone number of the telephonic device is identified from the form information using which a voice communications session is established with the telephonic device from an interactive voice response system of the call handling system. Voice information is exchanged with the user and text, image or video information is communicated to the user via the voice and data communications sessions respectively.