Patent ID: 7127045

Claim:
A telephone set, comprising: a plurality of individual answering mode setting buttons, each button dedicated to a single one of a plurality of users; a first memory to store an individual answering mode setting state for each of the plurality of users, each state set by a respective one of the individual answering mode setting buttons and indicative of whether a respective one of said users is present or absent; and a controller to check whether the users are all absent based on the stored individual answering mode setting states when a ring signal is detected, to switch from a speech mode to a message recording mode when all the users are absent, and to control a detectable indicator when at least one of the users is not absent, wherein, when at least one of the users is not absent, the control unit: detects an input of at least one of the answering mode setting buttons when the user who is not absent answers the telephone set; and switches from the speech mode to the message recording mode when the input of the at least one answering mode setting button is detected.