A computer-implemented method for managing a billing policy for mobile phone associated with a first phone number corresponding to a first account and a second phone number corresponding to a second account is described herein. The billing policy defines actions performed by the mobile phone to be charged to the first account, and defines actions performed by the mobile phone to be charged to the second account. Charges are allocated to one of the first account and second account based on the billing policy. A user can configured to phone to operate in a private mode, in response to which actions are charged to a default account of the two accounts, and information about the action is not provided to an external entity.

According to embodiments of the present invention, there is provided a method, system and apparatus for handling a request for a communication session. The method comprises receiving, at a processing time, a request for a communication session, the request comprising a destination network identifier, the destination network identifier having been registered in association with a plurality of communication clients; the request having been originated by an originating party associated with an originating identifier. The method further comprises identifying, based on at least one of the originating network identifier and the processing time, a subset of the plurality of communication clients. The method further comprises delivering the request to the subset of the plurality of communication clients.

Individuals often place calls on behalf of a group or collection of individuals. As provided herein, a caller may access or establish a group number to be presented to a callee. The callee then receives the call, such as by answering, caller identifier display, etc., and may wish to return the call. The callee then places a call to the group, rather than the individual who placed the call, which is then routed to members of the group. Any member of the group may then answer the call, thus avoiding issues associated with the originating caller being unavailable when any member of the group could address the purpose of the call. Additionally, status information may be automatically provided to allow group members to receive activity notification for calls to and/or from the group. For example, an indication that a call to an individual was placed on behalf of the group and, optionally, the status (e.g., answered, voicemail, etc.) of the call.

The present invention is related to telecommunications. A call processing system receives a first call from a caller intended for a first person. A notification regarding the first call is transmitted over a network to a terminal associated with the first person. A user interface is displayed on the terminal via which the first person can indicate that a callback message is to be transmitted to the caller. The callback message is transmitted to the caller, wherein the callback message includes an identification of the first person, a callback control, and text indicating that the caller is to activate the control to initiate another call to the first person. At least partly in response to the caller activating the control, A second call to be placed via which the first person and caller are connected.

A telecommunications server (2) controlling a plurality of telecommunications terminals (4) connected to a packet switched telecommunications system (40, 41), responds to call events (20) by transmitting an alert (251, 252) to each of the terminals. If the server is not capable of processing all the required event alerts in parallel, it processes the event alerts to the terminals in a predetermined sequence, according to stored prioritization rules (60). The priority accorded to an individual terminal may be set according to the alert mode (visual-only, or audible) currently set for that terminal (or the user currently using the terminal) for that call type or calling party.

An intermediate server communicatively coupled to a mobile phone associated with a first phone number corresponding to a first contact type and a second phone number corresponding to a second contact type, receives a request to receive an incoming call associated with a caller phone number. The request corresponds to the first or second phone number. The intermediate server identifies a contact type associated with the request and a contact type associated with the caller based on the caller phone number. The intermediate server further determines whether the caller is misclassified by comparing the contact type associated with the request and the contact type associated with the caller. In addition, the intermediate server sends a notification indicating that the caller is misclassified to the mobile phone in response to determining the contact type associated with the request and the contact type associated with the caller do not match.

A mobile phone establishes and maintains a data connection with an intermediate server. The intermediate server receives an incoming call from a caller. In response, the intermediate server identifies a contact group associated with the caller, and generates a notification message identifying the caller and including the identified contact group. The notification message is sent by the intermediate server to the mobile phone via the data channel, and concurrently, the intermediate server routes the incoming call to the mobile phone over a voice channel different from the data channel. The mobile phone modifies an existing contact record or generates a new contact record associated with the caller to include the contact group identified by the notification message. The mobile phone, in response to receiving the incoming call, accesses the modified contact record or generated contact record, and displays a notification identifying the caller and the identified contact group.

When authorized, a user of a computing device, such as a smart phone, may associate a telephone number that is assigned to a computing device with other computing devices. The other computing devices may or may not have an assigned device number. A user may also select to use the same number as the originating number of an electronic device. For example, a user may specify that each computing device associated with the user utilizes the same telephone number. The user may also specify that a computing device not utilize an assigned number. The associations of a device number with the computing devices may be stored as implicit registration data and/or as hunt groups.

A IP telephony service allows customers to form user groups. Each user group can include multiple members, each of whom have their own telephony device. When a member of a user group sends an outgoing communication from one of the telephony devices associated with the user group, the service obtains communication handling instructions for the user group. The outgoing communication is then processed in accordance with the handling instructions. This could include sending copies of the outgoing communication to the telephony devices of other members of the user group. This could also include sending the outgoing communication with an origination identifier associated with the user group, rather than an origination identifier associated with the member's telephony device.

Calls for large call queues are handled by a system that assigns agents of a call queue to one of a first group or a second group. A size of the first group or the second group is based on the online agents of the call queue that have an idle call status. The system batch rings each agent of the first group when an incoming call is received. If the incoming call is unanswered by the first group, the system batch rings each agent of the second group.