DEVICE AND METHOD TO SHOW RECIPIENT'S LOCAL TIME WITH REAL-TIME COMMUNICATION

Time zone and day of the week differences can complicate international business and family communication. A device and a method are described for displaying the expected local time and day of the recipient when initiating real-time communication. For real-time communication by telephone, a device of the invention calculates the expected local time of the recipient using a mapping from phone number digit prefixes to time zone information. For real-time communication using video or text chat over the Internet Protocol, a device of the invention calculates the expected local time of the recipient using Internet geolocation services, together with a database mapping from locations to time zone information. In both cases, should the estimated local time of the recipient, or his or her day of the week, be likely to make contact socially problematic, the device of the invention prompts the initiator with this information, allowing the initiator to avoid socially problematic communication, e.g. phone calls in the small hours of the morning or on weekends.