Disclosed are example methods, systems, and devices for allowing caller computing devices to authenticate calls via a service provider computing system. Users may opt to have entities register to contact the user with a positive ID, icon, or other notification on the user's computing device transmitted by the service provider computing system. A caller computing device may use a unique security token of the user to activate the notification on the user's device. The user device may be used to exert control over the security token via a service provider client application running on the user device. The caller computing device may initiate authentication via an API call to the service provider computing system. The caller computing device is able to have items (text, images, documents, etc.) delivered to the user computing device if authenticated.

A system is provided that includes a first network interface for a first network type and a second network interface for a second network type that is different from the first network type. The system also includes at least one processor configured to cause the system to perform operations. The operations may include obtaining, from the first network interface, audio from a communication session with a remote device established over the first network and obtaining an indication of a communication device available to participate in the communication session and direct audio obtained from the communication session to a remote transcription system. The operations may also include directing the audio to the second network interface for transmission to the communication device, obtaining transcript data from the remote transcription system based on the audio, and directing the transcript data to the second network interface for transmission to the communication device.

A method and apparatus are provided for presenting content to a caller and/or a called party in association with a telephone call or other communication connection. Content may be presented pre-ring (before the called party's telephone rings), in-call, and/or post-call, and may be related to a party participating in the call or may be related to a third party. Presentation of specified content may include assisted sharing, wherein both parties view the same content and one guides or assists the other. A received call may be split into signal and voice channels, with the signal channel used to notify a call controller of the call and the voice channel being directed to an agent selected by the call controller to handle the call.

The embodiments described herein recite a telephone communication system used for handling information such as messages, typically voice mail messages, and, more particularly, is directed to a system that provides distributed session initiation protocol (SIP) silos. Distributed SIP silos (DSS) is a Communications Application Platform (CAP) feature that maintains the site's call capacity even when a signaling server fails. DSS uses multiple non-redundant signaling servers to provide SIP signaling for the same set of media ports. Because there are multiple signaling servers providing signaling for the same set of ports, the failure of one signaling server only terminates the calls it was actively processing and once those calls have been cleaned up, all the available (non-suspended) ports in the configuration are available to the remaining signaling servers.

Communications equipment associated with a calling party in a telecommunications network has a telephony function for handling telephone calls and a data communication application for handling data communication sessions. The telephony function and the data communication application have an associated first and second user interface respectively. A called party identifier is collected via the second user interface in response to user input at the communications equipment. A telephone call is set up between the calling party and the called party using the telephony function on the basis of the collected called party identifier. Data communication session setup information, comprising information identifying the called party, is transmitted on the basis of the collected called party identifier. The data communication session setup information is for establishing a data communication session separate from the telephone call for the communication of data between the calling party and the called party.

The invention relates to a method for establishing a telecommunications link (C1, C2, C3), controlled by a control program (28), with a second communications terminal (D1), according to which a CTI service is made available to the first communications terminal (36) by a CTI server (20) in a CTI domain allocated to said CTI server (20), and the second communications terminal (D1) is located outside the CTI domain and by way of a proxy (Trk2) situated within the CTI domain is linked to the CTI server (20). The control program (28) is linked to the CTI server (20) by way of an intermediate functional unit (30, 32). The intermediate functional unit (30, 32) signals to the control program (28) that the second communications terminal (D1) instead of the proxy (Trk2) is linked into the established telecommunications link (C1, C2, C3) as the telecommunications terminal. The intermediate functional unit (30, 32) instructs the CTI server (20) to carry out the CTI service on the proxy (Trk2) in accordance with the control program (28). Furthermore, an intermediate functional unit (extra domain device, CSP) can be implemented as additional server or middleware. The invention further provides a corresponding system.

A method and apparatus are provided for presenting multimedia content to a caller and/or a called party in association with a telephone call. Content may be presented pre-ring (before the called party's telephone rings), in-call, and/or post-call. Content presented to a party may be related to another party participating in the call or may be related to a third party (e.g., an advertiser that paid for the ability to have its content presented). Presented content may be actuable, to allow a caller to change the destination of a call, take advantage of an offer presented to him or her, redeem a coupon, schedule or queue a subsequent call, etc. To find a desired destination party, a caller may initiate a manual or automatic search of his or her local contacts (on his telephone) and/or a central or global directory or contact list.

A system is provided that includes a first network interface for a first network type and a second network interface for a second network type that is different from the first network type. The system also includes at least one processor configured to cause the system to perform operations. The operations may include obtaining, from the first network interface, audio from a communication session with a remote device established over the first network and obtaining an indication of a communication device available to participate in the communication session and direct audio obtained from the communication session to a remote transcription system. The operations may also include directing the audio to the second network interface for transmission to the communication device, obtaining transcript data from the remote transcription system based on the audio, and directing the transcript data to the second network interface for transmission to the communication device.

A method of augmenting a telecommunications call, the method comprising: detecting a telecommunications call event at a user telecommunications device; selecting an item of media content, the item of media content being associated with the calling party; augmenting the call with the item of media content; detecting a user interaction with the device in response to the item of media content; and transmitting information relating to the user interaction to the calling party.

Methods for providing contextual information about communication devices and/or services. Profile information indicating a user's communication devices and/or services is stored. When profile information or a message log is displayed, the user may identify a communication device and/or service. A query inquires whether the user would like contextual information. The contextual information may be obtained from a gateway in a data network or a telecommunications manager in a telecommunication network. The contextual information is displayed. Profile information about a user's communicating partner may be stored. When the user makes an effort to communicate with the partner, a check may be made of the partner's profile information for a preferred communication device and/or service. If the user does not have a communication device and/or service corresponding to that of the communicating partner, a query may inquire whether the user would like contextual information. If so, the contextual information is presented.