Patent ID: 8442206

Claim:
A method of responding to an incoming voice call, the method comprising: receiving the incoming call at a voice communication device; presenting via a user interface of the voice communication device options to: answer the incoming call; increase a ring-no-answer timeout value, the expiration of which causes the incoming call to be routed to voicemail; override the ring-no-answer timeout value causing the voice communication device to continue providing an incoming call alert until the incoming call is either answered or the call is abandoned by a caller; and direct the incoming call to voicemail; monitoring a user input with regard to the presented options via the voice communication device while the incoming call is being received and prior to the incoming call being answered; generating a user control signal in response to the user input received while the incoming call is being received and prior to the incoming call being answered, the user control signal identifying that termination of ring functionality associated with the incoming call is at least to be delayed and without the incoming call being answered on the voice communication device, a message is to be transmitted to a caller device initiating the incoming call identifying that answering of the incoming call has at least been delayed, the message to be transmitted to the caller device being a Dual Tone Multi-Frequency tone; and wherein identifying that termination of ring functionality associated with the incoming call is to at least be delayed comprises communicating the user control signal to a Ring-No-Answer module to modify operation of the Ring-No-Answer module by overriding a Ring-No-Answer timeout period so that the ring functionality is not terminated regardless of how long the call remains unanswered.