Abstract

A method and system for managing telephone calls includes a personal telephone manager (PTM) (12) and uses out-of-band, wireless, two-way signaling, messaging and alerting to screen, control, route and respond to incoming telephone calls and to communicate called party text messages in auditory form to the caller. Through use of an out-of-band signaling/messaging path (16), the PTM (12) frees the called party from the need to maintain telephone network connectivity, from having to inform others of his/her current location, and from having to subscribe to and use cellular telephone service. Instead, the called party can rely on the availability of existing low bandwidth, wide area, two-way wireless data services, which make efficient and cost effective use of available radio spectrum. Two-way wireless data messaging to a portable computer (18) equipped with radio transceivers is also provided. This feature enables the system to provide a set of real-time options including: call screening by the called party based on information identifying the caller's telephone number; call redirection to a wire-line or wireless telephone number as specified by the called party; call redirection to a third party or to a voice mail system; or the return of a text message specified by the called party and delivered to the caller in an auditory form.