Patent ID: 6381329
Filing Date: 2002-04-30
Classification: H04M

Abstract:
A telephone call handling system comprising:a point of presence call center communicatively coupled to receive one or more inbound calls via a local telephone network and to queue said one or more inbound calls pending transfer to an automated call distributor that also queues inbound calls in a queue and distributes the inbound calls in sequence to human operators as human operators become available, the point of presence call center further being communicatively coupled to a data network separate from the local telephone network over which the point of presence call center transmits proxy call requests corresponding to the one or more inbound calls; and a computer telephony server coupled to the automated call distributor, and to a second telephone network, and configured to receive proxy call requests from the data network, the computer telephony server being configured to (i) receive the proxy call requests from the data network, (ii) insert, for each proxy call request, a corresponding proxy call in the queue, and (iii) notify the point of presence call center via the data network when the proxy call has advanced to a threshold point in the queue.