A system for exchanging GPS or other position data between wireless devices for purposes of group activities, child location monitoring, work group coordination, dispatching of employees etc. Cell phones and other wireless devices with GPS receivers have loaded therein a Buddy Watch application and a TalkControl application. The Buddy Watch application communicates with the GPS receiver and other wireless devices operated by buddies registered in the users phone as part of buddy groups or individually. GPS position data and historical GPS position data can be exchanged between cell phones of buddies and instant buddies such as tow truck drivers via a buddy watch server. Emergency monitoring services can be set up with notifications to programmable individuals in case an individual does not respond. Positions and tracks can be displayed. TalkControl simplifies and automates the process of joining talk groups for walkie talkie services such as that provided by Nextel.

Computer program products, methods, systems, apparatus, and computing entities are provided for call control. Upon receipt of a voice call initiated by a mobile device, one or more call control rules associated with the phone number through which the voice call was received is determined, and responsive to identifying the one or more call control rules, an alternative communication session is initiated with the mobile device by transmitting a message to the mobile device including a hyperlink to initiate the alternative communication session. The voice call is then suspended and then later terminated upon determining that a user of the mobile device selects the hyperlink to initiate the alternative communication session.

A system comprising: (a) a server receiving a calling party's phone number and a called party's phone number when a telephone call is placed; (b) a database of content items uploaded to the server, each of said content items associated with a telephone number of a party that uploaded it; and (c) a content delivery mechanism configured to push a unique identifier (UID) of a specific content item uploaded by the called party to the calling party's handset in response to said receiving by said server.

Technologies for handling a call based on user identification include determining a personal profile identification for a user of a communal mobile communication device and initiating a call to a personal communication device using a phone number of the personal communication device and the personal profile identification. The personal communication device may apply a call treatment to the incoming call based on the personal profile identification. Additionally, the personal communication device may originate a call to a call recipient of the communal mobile communication device using a personal profile identification to identify the call recipient. The communal mobile communication device may apply a call treatment to the incoming call based on the personal profile identification.

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, relating to synthetic call status updates. In some implementations, a method includes determining, by a task manager module, that a triggering event has occurred to provide a current status of a user call request. The method may then determine, by the task manager module, the current status of the user call request. A representation of the current status of the user call request is generated. Then, the generated representation of the current status of the user call request is provided to the user.

The present disclosure provides details of a system and method for customizing an inmate communication notification. Such a system provides an inmate different customized notification messages to be played to different called parties. The system includes a list of different contacts, and each of the contacts can be associated with one or more contact numbers. Each contact number is associated with one or more customized notification messages. The customized notification messages include terms, phrases, and sentences that draw the called party's attention and sound familiar to the called party. The customized notification messages include customized text files, audio files, and video files. An inmate chooses one or more customized notification messages to be played to a called party.

An example method comprising receiving a plurality of categories of availability statuses, receiving a plurality of categories of different contact groups, identifying, for each contact, at least one contact group, receiving a plurality of rules for call handling, each of the plurality of rules being associated with at least one of the different availability statuses and at least one of the different contact groups, receiving a telephone call from a first caller, identifying a caller identifier of the first caller, determining a contact group of the first caller, determining a current availability status of the recipient, identifying an applicable rule based on the contact group of the first caller and the current availability status of the recipient, selecting an audio prompt based on the applicable rule, and presenting the audio prompt to the first caller based on the applicable rule, the audio prompt indicating a preference of communication.

A system comprises a service platform comprising an applications server. The applications server is configured to receive an inbound communication, route the inbound communication to a speech-enabled intelligent script, the speech-enabled intelligent script comprising one or more of predetermined prompts and dynamically-generated prompts, and determine a source of the inbound communication and a destination of the inbound communication. The applications server is configured to determine that at least one prior inbound communication directed to the destination has been received from the source of the inbound communication. The applications server is configured to receive, in response to at least one predetermined prompt or dynamically-generated prompt, a request for direct contact information associated with the destination of the inbound communication. The applications server is configured to send, to the source of the inbound communication, a message comprising the direct contact information for the destination of the inbound communication.

One disclosed system includes dialer device with a dialer identifier that initiates a call with a receiver device with a receiver identifier over a voice channel. A database stores: interaction data in association with both the receiver identifier and the dialer identifier; a content quality metric in association with the interaction data; and a network topology in which the receiver identifier and the dialer identifier are associated with nodes and are connected by an edge. A server is programmed to: update, based on the content quality metric and the network topology, a rankings associated with the receiver identifier and the dialer identifier; and one of: surface the ranking associated with the dialer identifier and the ranking associated with the receiver identifier to an external searching agent using an external data channel and without using any voice channel; or rank the dialer identifier for an internal searching agent using the ranking.

A method of establishing a communication session between at least two parties is described the method comprising the steps of: receiving information from a plurality of parties, the information on the parties comprising: the party type selected for the group comprising targets, authorisers and requestors, and at least one communication method; receiving a request to store information on an authoriser; receiving a request from a requesting party to contact a target party; facilitating an agreement between the requesting party and the authoriser; receiving a schedule for at least one time period that the requesting party is authorised to contact the target party from the authoriser; notifying the requesting party of the at least one time period; and establishing a communication session between the requesting party and the target party if the requesting party is authorised to contact the target party at the time the communication session is initiated.