Abstract: A communications system is designed to allow a call waiting subscriber who is already busy on a first call to receive information associated with a message being recorded by a second caller attempting to reach the subscriber. According to one aspect of the principles disclosed herein, a one-way conference call is established between the second caller and the subscriber as the message is being recorded to allow the subscriber to eavesdrop on the message. According to another aspect of the principles disclosed herein, an Automatic Speech Recognition system may transcribe the message being recorded into ASCII coded data that is delivered to the called party. The received message allows the subscriber to effectively assess whether the first call in progress should be interrupted to answer the second call in waiting.