1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to conference calling systems and methods, more particularly to a system and method for providing more specific information about the speakers in a conference call.
2. Background of the Invention
Most users are familiar with the use of calling number display (CND) used with such phone features such as Caller ID(trademark). In the situation where a person is calling from one single-line location, such as a house, to another single-line location, the caller""s name, phone number, or both may appear on a display on the receiving person""s phone. The receiving phone must have the capability of locating and translating the identification code in order to display it to the user.
In some situations, however, a more limited amount of information is made available to the receiving person. For example, a call from a multiple-line location such as a business may result in a display of the number and the business name. Similarly, when an outside call is received at a business the receiving phone may just register that it is an outside call. Typically, calls within a multiple line location use a private branch exchange (PBX) that can identify both the callers and their extension numbers for the receiving people.
Conference calls produce further complications to the identification of callers. Conference calls require a unit to make several individual connections between itself and the various participants in a call. These connections may be between people all within a company or other internal group, or a mix of inside and outside callers. The connecting device may be a PBX or a bridge, or any unit that can make the individual connections necessary to have a conference call. For ease of discussion, the connection unit will be referred to as a bridge when referring to public-switched-telephone-networks (PSTN) and integrated-services-data-networks (ISDN) and a multipoint control unit (MCU) when referring to Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP or Voice-over-Internet).
The complication arises because of the multiple connections that are made through the bridge or MCU. As an example, a current set up for a conference call of N users is shown in FIG. 1. Caller 110a, caller 210b and caller N 10c, are all connected to the central bridge to participate in the conference call. Each of the callers has a display 12a-c on their respective phones that display the calling party identification (ID). However, because the bridge 14 treats each connection as an individual call, it sends and the callers see the conference bridge name as the caller. This is less than optimal.
For example, during the course of the conference call, caller 1 speaks. Because the caller identification does not change, callers 2 and N may have to ask the caller to identify his or herself. When caller 2 then replies to caller 1, the same problem occurs. This leads to awkward and inefficient conference calls.
Therefore, there is a need for a system and method for conference calls allowing speaker identification.
One aspect of the invention is a method for providing speaker identification in a conference call. The method identifies the speaker and locates and extracts the caller identification of the speaker. The conference calling unit then assumes that caller identification and sends the associated identifier to the endpoints participating in the conference caller as a speaker ID. The method applies to PSTN, ISDN and VoIP calls.
Another aspect of the invention is a conference calling unit that locates and extracts the caller identifier of the speaker. The unit then sends that information to the endpoints participating in the conference call as a speaker identifier. The conference calling unit could be a communications card, an attachment to existing connection units, a software upgrade to present network processing equipment or new network processing equipment.