Abstract:
A party to a call that has been put on hold is provided with textual, display, announcements while on hold, via the on-hold call. A facility of the party that put the call on hold transmits text-based status indicators that are then displayed on a display of the on-hold party&#39;s communications device.

Description:
TECHNICAL FIELD 
     This invention relates to telecommunications. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     While on hold, such as while waiting in a hunt group (also referred to as a queue) of a contact center, a party to the call that has been put on hold may hear silence, music, or periodic reminders that the call is important and to stay on the line. In some cases, voiced announcements to the on-hold party provide estimates of the wait time. 
     One disadvantage of these arrangements is that the on-hold party must listen on the call for an indication that the far-end resource has taken the call off of hold and come on line. Having to listen to the call while waiting on-hold inconveniences the on-hold party and interferes with that party&#39;s ability to put the waiting time to good use. 
     Another disadvantage of these arrangements is that, in some scenarios, large amounts of network bandwidth and resources are utilized by on-hold calls. For example, if the audio encoder specified by ITU-T Recommendation G.711 is employed for the music-on-hold or for the status announcements (this being the most commonly used audio encoding algorithm for telephony applications), a transmission rate of 64,000 bits per second is required. 
     In packet-switching communications systems, particularly Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) systems, various standards organizations have proposed IP mechanisms by which voice and conversational text can be intermixed in the same phone call. For example, ITU-T Recommendation T.140 and RFC 4103 describe a mechanism by which voice and text are intermixed. Additionally, concurrent intermixing of text and voice is supported by the teletype (TTY)-on-VoIP architecture, in which text is transported on VoIP networks as RFC 2833-format descriptions of the corresponding Baudot TTY tones. Control signals and voice stream data is conveyed along the same channel in-band by using different types of packets (i.e., using different packet headers). 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     Generally according to the invention, a party to a call that has been put on hold is provided with textual, display, announcements while on hold, via the on-hold call. According to an aspect of the invention, a facility of the party that placed the call on hold (referred to herein as the far-end party) transmits text-based status indicators that are then displayed on the display of the on-hold party&#39;s communications device. Examples of text-based status indicators include “You are on far-end hold”, “Waiting for the next available agent”, “Expected wait time is five minutes,” etc. The text may be refreshed as appropriate, e.g., “The expected wait time is now three minutes.” Preferably, character strings that attract attention, such as strings that appear to be animated as they scroll across the display, are used to alert the on-hold party that the far-end resource is now available. 
     Unlike the approaches that provide auditory feedback to an on-hold party, this approach does not require the on-hold party to listen to the phone while waiting. 
     According to another aspect of the invention, a call with a communications device is placed on hold, and while the call is on hold, text is sent to the device via the call for display on the device. According to yet another aspect of the invention, a communications device has a call with a far end placed on hold by the far end, and while the call is on hold, the device receives text from the far end via the call, which text it then displays. 
     The invention is preferably implemented by using one of the mechanisms by which voice and text can be intermixed in the same phone call. This approach thus does not require the use of a special communications protocol that would provide for telephone-to-telephone signaling. 
     An additional benefit to the invention is that the transmission of text-on-IP requires considerably-less bandwidth than is required to transmit audio. Illustratively, the Baudot text protocol requires only seven bits per character, as compared with the sixty-four thousand bits required to transmit one second of G.711-encoded audio information, such as speech or music-on-hold. 
     While the invention has been characterized in terms of method, it also encompasses apparatus that performs the method. The invention further encompasses any computer-readable medium containing instructions which, when executed in a computer, cause the computer to perform the method steps. 
     The term “call” as used herein is intended to be construed broadly so as to encompass traditional telephony, Internet telephony communications, VoIP communications, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) communications, multimedia communications, or other types of network traffic in a network-based communication system. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING 
       These and other features and advantages of the invention will become more apparent from considering the following description of an illustrative embodiment of the invention together with the drawing, in which: 
         FIG. 1  is a block diagram of a first communications system that includes a first illustrative embodiment of the invention; 
         FIG. 2  is a block diagram of a second communications system that includes a second illustrative embodiment of the invention; 
         FIG. 3  is a functional flow diagram of operations of a contact center of the system of  FIG. 1  or  2 ; and 
         FIG. 4  is a functional flow diagram of operations of either a VoIP device of the system of  FIG. 1  or a server of the system of  FIG. 2 . 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       FIG. 1  shows a communications system that includes at least one Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) communications device  106 , such as a wired or a wireless phone, a computer-implementing a softphone, a personal digital assistant, etc., connected by a data network  104 , such as the Internet, local area network, a wide area network, etc., to a contact center  102 . VoIP device  106  and contact center  102  are configured to intermix voice and text in the same conversation. Preferably, contact center  102  transmits, and VoIP device  106  receives, voice and text in the same real-time transport protocol (RTP) stream. While contact center  102  may transmit, and VoIP device  106  may receive, voice and text in separate RPT streams, the association and coordination of the separate streams into a single conversation makes this implementation less desirable. 
     VoIP device  106  is illustratively a stored-program-controlled device that includes a store for storing programs and data, and a processor for executing the programs and generating and/or using the data. Device  106  includes a receiver  120  for receiving an RTP packet stream from data network  104 , a depacketizer  122  that determines the payload type of the received packets from a field of the header of the packets, extracts the payload, and sends each payload type to a different decoder  124 ,  126 , a decoder  124  for decoding the audio payload and a decoder  126  for decoding the text payload, an audio driver  128  for driving a speaker  130  with the audio payload, and a display driver  132  for displaying the text payload on a display  134 . VoIP device  106  is illustratively the Avaya Model 4620 IP telephone. 
     Contact center  102  is illustratively a stored-program-controlled entity that includes a store for storing programs and data, and a processor for executing the programs and generating and/or using the data. The stored programs include conventional contact-center call-processing software  110  that includes the ability to place contacts on-hold for a hunt group (“in queue”). The software also includes a conventional voice-announcement generator  112  for generating voice announcements that are provided to parties whose contacts are on hold. The voice announcements are conventionally coded by an encoder  114 , encapsulated in RTP packets by a packetizer  116 , and transmitted by a transmitter  118  via data network  104  to the on-hold party&#39;s VoIP device  106 . Contact center  102  is illustratively the Avaya MultiVantage Customer Interaction Suite. 
     As described so far, the system of  FIG. 1  is conventional. 
     According to the invention, contact center  102  further includes a text-announcement generator  140  for generating text announcements that are provided to parties whose contacts are on hold. The text announcements are coded by an encoder  142  into a form that is suitable for transmission via an RTP packet stream, such as any of the formats specified by the Unicode Consortium”—see, The Unicode Standard, Version 5.0, Fifth Edition, The Unicode Consortium, Addison-Wesley Professional, Oct. 27, 2006. ISBN 978-0-321-48091. For example, the encoding may be a T.140 text form. Alternatively, the announcements may be coded by encoder  142  in one or more of the formats specified by International Telecommunication Union Recommendation V.18, such as an RFC 2833 signal-generation instructions form. The coded text is supplied in parallel with the coded audio output of encoder  114  to packetizer  116 , which encapsulates the coded text into RTP packets having a header field that identifies them as non-audio packets. The RTP stream is transmitted by transmitter  118  through network  104  to VoIP device  106 . 
       FIG. 2  shows an alternative communications system that includes at least one communications device  206 , such as a display telephone, connected by a server  208 , such as a private branch exchange (PBX) or some other telephony switch, to a data network  104  and a contact center  102 . Network  104  and contact center  102  of the system of  FIG. 2  duplicate the same elements of the system of  FIG. 1 . 
     Server  208  is illustratively a stored-program-controlled device that includes a store for storing programs and data, and a processor for executing the programs and generating and/or using the data. The stored programs include conventional call-processing software  230  for interconnecting telephones and other devices  206  with each other and with network  104 . Server  208  includes at least one set of elements  220 - 226  that duplicate elements  120 - 126  of device  106  of the system of  FIG. 1 . Outputs of decoders  224  and  226  are connected to a port circuit  228  that connects to and drives communications device  206  via a voice channel  240  and a signaling channel  242 , such as a B channel and a D channel, respectively, of an ISDN protocol link. Voice channel  240  conveys the audio payload of the RTP packet stream to an audio device  244  of device  206 , such as the speaker of a handset, headset, or speakerphone. Signaling channel  242  conveys the text payload of the RTP packet stream to a display  246  of device  206 . The text is encoded in a format that is compatible with display  246 . Server  208  is illustratively the Avaya MultiVantage-controlled Gateway with TN2302AP/BP Media Processor, or the Avaya G700 Gateway with the MM760 IP Media Module. Device  206  is illustratively the Avaya Model 2420 digital telephone. 
     Operation of the communication system of  FIG. 1  or  2  that is relevant to an understanding of this invention is shown in  FIGS. 3 and 4 .  FIG. 3  shows the operation of contact center  102 . Contact center  102  places a contact from device  106  or  206  on hold, at step  300 . 
     Occasionally thereafter, contact center  102  generates a text announcement, at step  302 , and encodes, packetizes, and transmits the text announcement to the on-hold device  106  or  206 . Contact center may also generate voice announcements and send them to device  106  or  206 . Contact center  102  repeats steps  302  and  304  as needed, until it takes the contact of device  106  and  206  off of hold, at step  306 . 
       FIG. 4  shows the operation of VoIP device  106  of  FIG. 1 , or the operation of server  208  and device  206  of  FIG. 2 . Device  106  or server  208  receives, de-packetizes, and decodes the text announcement, at step  400 . Device  106  then displays, or server  208  causes device  206  to display, the text announcement, at step  402 . Steps  400  and  402  are repeated for every text announcement that contact center  102  sends. VoIP device  106  or server  208  and device  206  may also receive and play any audio announcements that are sent by contact center  102 . 
     Of course, various changes and modifications to the illustrative embodiment described above will be apparent to those skilled in the art. For example, the idea may be used to effect text messaging to the same endpoint, but via a channel other than the media or signaling stream of the phone call (notably “SMS” on cell phones). Or, it may be used with phones that have PBX-controlled status lamps but no alphanumeric display (such as the Avaya Model 6402 and 6408), which would flash their LEDs in an attention-getting manner when the far-end becomes available and/or when the far end is sending or is about to send an audio alert. Or, on phones that are video-capable, the idea may be used to send the on-hold text via the video mechanism even if the call itself is audio-only. These changes and modifications can be made without departing from the spirit and the scope of the invention and without diminishing its attendant advantages. It is therefore intended that such changes and modifications be covered by the following claims except insofar as limited by the prior art.