DEVICE FOR SELECTING A CARRIER ACCORDING TO TARIFF DATA SUPPLIED BY THE CARRIER

The invention relates to a device for selective connection of telephone-to-telephone communication carrier according to tariff data supplied by the carrier. The device includes an interconnected aggregation of hardware and software modules (e.g. a controller, an interface, a dialer). The controller is for accepting a number dialed by a service customer, extracting the addressee location from the number, reading the real time, finding the cheapest communications supplier for that location from a tariffs table, and generating a dialing sequence including the number dialed by the service customer, wherein the supplier designation was replaced with that corresponding to the supplier with the cheapest tariff. The interface, to a local telephone, is for emulating an external line for that telephone, for receiving the number dialed by a service customer, and for transferring the number to the controller. The dialer is connected to the external line for accepting the dialing sequence generated by the controller, and for sending dialing signals corresponding to that sequence over the external line. According to the preferred embodiment of the invention, the tariff tables of a plurality of devices are updated in parallel. This is accomplished using the broadcast facility of a communications service provider. This communications service provider is using a radio frequency or microwave frequency transmission to broadcast the tariff table update. According to another embodiment, tariff table updates are broadcast using spare bandwidth capacity of the primary communications service provider (e.g. the local Telephone Company), or by broadcast using spare bandwidth capacity of cable TV provider, cellular telephone service provider, or the like. Cette invention a trait à un dispositif permettant une connexion sélective de porteuse commune téléphone-téléphone en fonction de données tarifaires fournies par la porteuse. Ce dispositif comprend un groupement de modules de matériels et de logiciels de traitement des données interconnectés (par exemple, une unité de commande, une interface et un appareil de composition automatique). L'unité de commande accepte un numéro composé par un client, extrait de ce numéro l'emplacement d'adresse, effectue la lecture en temps réel, recherche pour cet emplacement le fournisseur de communications le meilleur marché à partir d'une table de tarifs et génère une séquence de numérotation comportant le numéro composé par le client, la désignation