Wireless telephone system for accessing multiple stations via a single telephone number

This invention relates to wireless telephone systems that are equipped with mobile telecommunication switching offices (MTSO), each of which is connected to a plurality of cell sites (base stations) which communicate with mobile subscriber stations, located in the area covered by the cell sites, via a wireless communication paradigm, to thereby enable the subscriber to originate and receive telephone calls. The wireless telephone system for accessing multiple stations via a single telephone number provides a single telephone number for a group of subscribers who are equipped with a plurality of stations, including at least one mobile subscriber station, to thereby enable call connections to be established to any one of the mobile subscriber stations in the group when the other stations in the group are in an idle state. A plurality of mobile subscriber stations are registered as members of a group that is assigned a single telephone number. The wireless communication system tracks the present location of the plurality of mobile subscriber stations and their present busy/idle status. If a subscriber at one of the plurality of mobile subscriber stations goes off-hook to originate a call connection, the wireless communication system determines whether any other members of the group are presently engaged in an active call connection using the assigned single telephone number. If not, the call connection proceeds as usual. If the single telephone number is presently in use, the wireless communication system can provide one of a number of possible call processing options to indicate the present use of the single telephone number. Thus, the time-sharing of the single telephone number among a plurality of individuals in a group conserves telephone numbers and results in service conflicts only if multiple service requests are concurrently received. By the use of traffic engineering criteria, the instances of such service conflicts can be kept to a minimum.