Hans Christian Oehring

US Patent:

40484521, Sep 13, 1977

Filed:

May 28, 1976

Appl. No.:

5/690995

Inventors:

Hans Oehring - Glen Ellyn IL
Philip Joseph Rossomando - Downers Grove IL

Assignee:

Bell Telephone Laboratories, Incorporated - Murray Hill NJ

International Classification:

H04Q 364

US Classification:

179 27D

Abstract:

A telephone switching arrangement is disclosed incorporating means for automatically distributing calls among a plurality of groups of call answering consoles. In the disclosed arrangement, which may be part of a telephone central office or may be located in a remote location such as a customer's premises, a directory number and a queuing register are assigned to each group of call answering consoles. Incoming calls for a particular directory number are queued in the associated queuing register and when a console of the assigned group of consoles is available, a connection is established to the available console from the line or trunk associated with a call in the queuing register. The time in queue for each call is measured and compared against upper and lower time thresholds. When the measured time in queue of a call exceeds the upper threshold, that call will be directed to an answering console associated with another directory number provided that the measured time in queue for the oldest call in the queuing register assigned to that directory number is less than the lower time threshold.