1A Voice Storage System: Voice Storage in the Network - Perspective and History

Voice Storage in the Network--Perspective and History By E. NUSSBAUM (Manuscript received November 1 7, 1981) In mid-1976, Bell Laboratories undertook development of the then radical concept of introducing new customer services via a voicestorage capability in the network. With four systems installed and ready for service, the project was terminated in October, 1981, as a result of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) actions stemming from the Computer Inquiry II decisions declaring voice storage to be an enhanced service that could not be offered by the regulated network. The following five papers, describing the services, architecture, and technology of the 1A Voice Storage System (vss) implementation of this Custom Calling Services (ccs) II offering were written two years ago and held until the regulatory outcome was settled. This brief introduction is intended to provide some background and perspective on the intervening time period. The basic design concepts behind the ccs II offering and its associated 1A vss serving vehicle can be categorized into four major elements: (i) Provision of a new class of flexible stored program controlled customer services involving storage, for later delivery, of the customer's voice messages under either called party control (Call Answering services) or calling party control (Advance Calling services)--to be known collectively as Custom Calling Services II. The design of ccs II included careful attention to interaction with previously existing ESSbased services (Custom Calling Services I) and to software flexibility of feature definitions, as has historically been the case in other stored program controlled systems.