Patent ID: 7627110

Claim:
A telephone device for connecting to a subscriber communications network comprising, a keypad consisting of the standard 12-button keypad, 4-rows×3-columns matrix, and 4 additional button keys; where each button of the 16 button keypad generates a distinct tone of the 16 defined DTMF tones “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0, A, B, C, D”; where the 4 additional buttons are arranged as a column in said keypad matrix and are labeled with any distinct alphanumeric character(s) or symbol and generates the; “A”, “B”, “C”, “D” DTMF tones respectively; where the 4 additional button keys are multifunctional, with a means to relabel said multifunctional keys from a computer on the network; where each of the buttons is used to activate the telephone so that the telephone transmits a DTMF signal consisting of two tones out to the communications network; where the combinations of tones are those specifically defined as DTMF tone combinations for each specific dialing character; where the two tones correspond to said labeling on each key and to a signaling digit in a dialed telephone number or signaling character to the PSTN; where the telephone number consists of combinations of the characters “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0, A, B, C, D”, where the six most frequently used letters of text/data entry, “e”, “t”, “a”, “o”, “i”, “n”, are each assigned to a key, where the communications network comprises a receiving device that decodes the transmitted DTMF signaling from the telephone and converts said received signaling into a network address in order to complete a phone call.